Choco-lemon Macarons

Sunshine yellow macaron shells, filled with a decadent lemon curd and semi-dark chocolate ganache.

Sunshine in me belly!

The first time I went to L'adurée was a long while ago with my cousin. Out at a day in London, we stopped by the café for some afternoon tea. A step inside and I felt like a kid in a candy store, such a pretty little sight! They had a vast array of flavours and many other sweet items on display.
I wanted to eat, yet also bake everything I had witnessed there.

As we finally sat down, I ordered about 4-5 macarons with my vanilla tea. I know I know, fatty I hear you cry! But if you've been there, you know how hard it is to simply choose the one or two. And they had - at the time -  limited edition ones, or was it specialities? I can't remember. All I remember was that the one that made my stomach summersault was the lemon and chocolate macaron. To die for. 

If you think about it, the two flavours are so repelling as individuals. Lemon and chocolate? Ergh - that's probably what you're thinking right!? You've just got to try it to understand where I'm coming from. Together they become something else. And since then, it has become one of my best chocolate combos. It's magical.

I was testing out a smaller batch than my usual step-by-step recipe:  which actually takes a tad more egg whites when halved. It's all about playing around and seeing what's best for you that works. 

Here's how I made it!

Ingredients:

118g ground almonds

118g icing sugar

yellow food colouring paste/gel/powder

41g egg whites and 65g egg whites (divided)

58g water

118g granulated sugar

Filling:

Lemon curd

200g 53% dark chocolate (I used Callebaut)

100g double cream

2 tbsp butter

pinch of salt

Method: 

The first bit is probably the most tedious, but it has to be done to ensure a nice smooth macaron!

• Sift the ground almonds and icing sugar together in a bowl and combine.
• Place them in a food processor and process until fine and combined.
• Sift again in a medium bowl.
• Make a well in the centre and add the 41g of egg whites then mix thoroughly until well combined and you've end up with a thick paste or 'gloop' as I like to say. (I like words with double o's okay, I don't even know why.)
• In the mean time, place the sugar and water in a saucepan with a 'candy' thermometer and switch the heat on. When it gets to 200 degrees Farenheit, start whisking your egg whites slowly with a pinch of sugar up until the temp reaches around 245 degree Farenheit.
• Quickly whisk in the sugar mixture and continue whisking the eggs until thick and glossy. If you want to add colour then this is the time. After or just before pouring the sugar mix, add the yellow food colouring gel. It lightens so add a tad more than you'd like it to be.
• Fold in the egg whites into the almond gloop a couple of times. *Do the macaron-a* (I hope one of you laughed at that.)
• Then add the rest of the egg whites slowly and fold a couple of times until combined. I don't count my fold but you want the texture to be thick and ribbon like, if you overmix, the mixture will turn flat and super runny which is what you definitely do not want! Also mix too much and it may end up with a slightly chewy texture. Soft on the inside and hard out the outside (like a man!) Remember?
• Pipe small rounds onto baking paper on a tray or a silpat mat or moulds and let it ret until a thick skin forms. Around 30 mins.
• Preheat the oven (I do this now guys!) to 147 degrees C. I use an electric fan oven so add 20 degrees if you're using a traditional gas one. Place in the middle of the oven one sheet at time and bake for 15 minutes - mine take 25 - never know why. Just keep checking after 15 mins.
• Let them cool and voila!

For the Filling:

To be honest, I made this lemon curd beforehand for a cake and I can't remember precisely how I made it (sorry), I will post the recipe once I find it - it was from a YouTube vid! Meanwhile, I suggest you get a good jar full from your local deli, the fresh good quality stuff is always best.

• To make the ganache, heat the cream and butter in a saucepan until hot and add to chopped chocolate in a bowl, do not stir.
• Once you see the chocolate melting, add the salt and gradually stir quickly until well combined.Let it cool and add 4tbsp of lemon curd and mix. Add as much as you like to get the right lemony flavour, this part is all about preference.

And there you go! Make sure you try this flavour out, it's just so tantalising to the tongue.

Any issues, feel free to ask. :)

Dainty Cook x

Giving for Gaza: The Mass Macaron Make

Deeply touched by the news, I couldn't sit idly while fellow innocents were being killed.

I've given to charity and aided with fundraising before, but this time I wanted to do more as an individual. To give more to the Palestinians. Without any prevalent source of income however, (excluding student loans and bank of mum and dad!) I felt that utilising my baking skills to singlehandedly raise money would help me achieve this.


After all, food is a universal language.

The Palestine-Israel conflict; we've all heard about it on the news and read about it in the papers, it's not easy to ignore. The majority of us have been effected by the horrific images plastered all over the internet of harmless children laying on the bombed remains of Gaza: unworthy of being labelled as their deathbed. Most of us feel for the victims of Israel's rockets, the innocent civilians who live every moment in caution.

Indeed, there are other wars going on, others in dire need. But when you hear of this war, when you specifically see an image of a group of Israelis gathered to cheer the bombings in Gaza - composed against an image of an injured child clutching onto a paramedic, desperately crying for it's father, you know something needs to be done, pronto.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/20/israelis-cheer-gaza-bombing

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2699846/This-desperate-young-boy-face-tragedy-Palestinian-child-clutches-shirt-hospital-worker-screaming-I-want-father-bring-father.html

My reason for this post is to primarily share a brief experience of this fundraiser. I'm not aiming to discuss who's side I'm on, who's right and wrong in this post, but the journalist in me, the heart in me that has emotions, the heart that is human - as obvious as I have made it - would fervently defend the Palestinians if I were to write a coherent article or even an opinion piece about the ongoing conflict.

You've only got to be human to know that what's going on in Gaza right now is simply, well...inhumane. 

And so, came the challenge: making macarons in mass.

I decided on making macarons because they're not widely available in my city, thus believed they would be popular. It also meant that I'd be able to customise the packaging. I really enjoyed adding dainty little ribbons and colourful tissue paper, you know, just giving it that personal touch. It was actually quite exciting for me (sad I know).

Where do I even start with these babies though? If anyone has read my post: Temperamental Twats: The Macaron, or has attempted to make them themselves, you'd know exactly how difficult they can be. Macarons require time, effort and a certain level of patience to produce. The most I had previously made was for my sibling's henna-do. Let's just say, post-do I was renamed the "macaron monster." 

I went a little bit mental and vowed, never again.

I knew my insanity would reach to a higher level this time round. Perfectionist problems! And I was somewhat correct.

This time, I think it was mainly tiredness from fasting, being in the kitchen baking for other occasions and incorrect calculations of ingredients that made it all the more strenuous. It made me realise how poor I am at math (there's a reason why I study English) and I might have overestimated how many I'd make per day, discounting failed batches.

As exciting as it was, it was daunting too. I had a batch that cracked, a batch that took forever to cook, as prior to this, I had 3 test runs which were all perfect! Usually when baking on the whim, my goods turns out fine, but in mass these just weren't meeting my normal standards. What if no one liked them? I had many worries, but I reminded myself that people would acknowledge that their money wouldn't have gone to waste, helping me get back in the groove.



I managed to make roughly 600 shells in three different flavours! Raspberry cheesecake, salted caramel with semi dark chocolate and white chocolate ganache with coconut. I just felt that these were 'universal' flavours, giving slightly more than your average stand-alone filling, whilst suiting a range of taste buds.

I'm glad many enjoyed their assorted boxes and expressed their favourite flavours! Those of you reading this who bought my macarons, helped me to spread the word or gave me advice, thank you so much - I cannot express that enough!



Ultimately, my motive for blogging this particular experience is to share what I learnt. Initially, I didn't think I would learn anything, (apart from that I often have a tendency to go mental.) But I learnt a lot. Especially personal 'realisations':

- I learnt that if I put my mind to something and believe in myself, I CAN do it.
- I learnt how lucky I am to have a roof over my head, to have food on my plate, to be able to walk out of my house without any anxieties of being bombed.
- I learnt that raising money to give to those who are in urgent need of it - to help and give to others - brings on this, I can't explain, this inner sense of happiness. This specific instance gave me a lot of that - just knowing that you've possibly made a huge difference to someone's life. Or saved one even.

Personally, the fact that I organised the fundraiser by myself was a great achievement alone.

I (potentially) helped a Palestinian and that in itself couldn't give me more internal peace than I have needed to experience in a long while.


Dainty Cook x

Temperamental Twats: The Macaron.

Yes, this is yet another post about macarons. If you haven't noticed (minus my last two recipes) I hadn't blogged in a while. Why not? Well whilst I did do some making and baking, which I quite frankly, was too lazy to type up, I was busy perfecting my 'macaronage'. Or trying to anyway.

As I mentioned in my post 'Macaron Madness', these have become as popular as the teenage obsession with Zayn Malik's hair. (I'm not going to lie, I think he is gorgeous!) They're like a little French delicacy I guess. Existing in a variety of flavours, fillings and colours, there's just something about them that I cannot get enough of. 

I am obsessed.

They're pricey and they're scarce where I live, so I thought I'd rise up to the challenge and make them myself.

Now let me tell you this straight mate. Unless you have magic hands or an enormous stroke of good luck and chance by your side, you will NOT get these right the first time. Like the title of this suggests, these idiots are far too temperamental. Do mind my language, I only use such terms when I'm annoyed. And oh boyyy have these buggers frustrated the hell out of me!

So in my recent trials, I've had around one fail. One okay. One awesome-oh-my-god-I-am-a-baking-queen and one good attempt (in that order.)

It takes practise, patience and persistence to get these right. Each time you make a mistake, you learn and you know better for the next time, so don't be disheartened. I mean, if you're an emotional lass like me, I actually got rather disappointed. BUT I WILL KEEP MAKING THEM UNTIL I CONSISTENTLY GET THEM TO BE AWESOME. *Breathes* Let's start with the recipe perhaps…

Oh, before we begin, I used the Italian meringue for this (that's what produced the awesome and good batches) as the French one's didn't work quite as well for me. Apparently they create more consistent results as you don't end up over-whipping the macaron mixture. The italian meringue involves heating sugar to a controlled temperature, whereas the French version doesn't. [Thank you BakerSt Cakes for this tip :) Do check out his lovely baked goods guys!]

As my macaron book (Macarons by Annie Rigg) uses only the French method I decided to google an Italian version. This lead me to annies-eats: How to Make Macarons Step by Step, (thank you annie-eats), which I then took and adapted.

Ingredients

215g almond powder

215g icing sugar 

82g and 90g egg whites, divided 

236g normal granulated sugar, plus a pinch 

158g water

Makes around 140 shells. Bear in mind not all batches will come out perfect if it's your first time!

Method:

• In a food processor, process away the icing sugar and almond powder, to make sure they are combined and extra fine.
• Sift this into a large mixing bowl and make a well in the centre (we don't want any lumps 'n' bumps folks!)
• Pour in the 82g of egg whites and mix until it is pastey and thick. This may take some strength to do, or maybe I'm just weak, whatever..

• Place the granulated sugar in a saucepan with the water on medium heat along with a sugar thermometer. When the temperature reaches around 200˚F - okay fine you can cheat and start a bit earlier like I did, I can get impatient sometimes - take another clean bowl and whip the other portion of egg whites, adding a pinch of sugar.

• Continue with the egg whites until they reach soft peaks, whilst checking on the sugar. When the sugar reaches 248˚ F take it off the heat.

• Pour this sugar syrup down the side of the bowl while whip-whip-whipping away on a higher speed until they are stiff and glossy! My mixture wasn't as stiff as it could have been, but they turned out fine so don't worry.
• This is the time to get creative. If you want to colour your macarons. Do it NOW. For these I added red food colouring gel to achieve a dark pinky colour. I use a cocktail stick to do this. I also added freeze dried raspberry pieces/powder to give it a bit of flavour. 
• Fold in the meringue with the almond paste, being careful not to over-mix.

• Pop the mixture into a piping bag with a plain round nozzle and pipe small rounds on baking paper on a baking tray. To help you get perfect circles draw small rounds on the paper and flip the paper on the other side. Conversely, you could buy a silicon mat! If the mixture is too thick it will stay the size you've piped, too thin and it will spread too much. You want it in between.

Bang the mat/tray on the table to let out air bubbles.

• Annie's version says you don't have to let them rest, but it is important that you do let them rest until a skin forms at the top and they are not wet to touch. This is to avoid cracks as the air will then escape from the bottom 'feet' of the macarons. Again another tip from BakerSt Cakes!
• Now you're supposed to put them in a preheated oven and then turn it down to 160degrees C. I didn't do this as my macarons ended up cracking. Instead I switched on the fan oven to 150 and placed them in straightaway. They took longer to bake, 15-25 minutes, but it meant that they wouldn't crack and I wouldn't have to waste my efforts and end up sulking at a failed batch. I say you just keep experimenting with your oven. If you can put it higher then go for it, I'm not a fan of waiting around for too long to be honest.
• Keep a close watch on them though, they are unpredictable fools.

• And there ya go me lovlies. They should come out smoooth, shiny with risen feet. You can fill em up with whatever you like! I used white chocolate and dark chocolate ganache (separately): Simply melt 200g of choccy in a bowl over simmering heat, add 150ml double cream, 5 tbsps butter and whisk away! Then pipe them on a shell and leave to set.

 

The end product: Raspberry and Chocolate Macarons.

They're just one of the best things I have tasted and created! They should be crisp on the outside yet soft on the inside. Ideally, you should put them in the fridge for a day for the flavours to mature.

I then tried making these again but in more flavours. Mango with a mango crème filling. Peanut butter with a peanut butter and choccy filling and strawberry with chocolate ganache.

I'm going to have to admit, not all of these worked as well as I hoped. I had to keep them in the oven for agess and they ended up being more crisp than expected. Nonetheless, they were still devoured!

Boxed up for friends!

So have a go! They're dainty, yet fab. I'm still going to be perfecting my technique and trying out other recipes until I get them to be constantly immaculate. The next time you hear from me, I may complain that I have gone half bald..

I guess they really are 'bad boys.'

Au revoir mes amis.

Dainty Cook x