Chocolate Macarons

So in working on the wedding macarons, this is the 3rd flavor.

In case you couldn't tell, it's chocolate... keep in mind that chocolate powder dries up the batter much faster than normal shell batters.

For the filling, I got some nice chocolate from the store.  I, again used 1/3 c of heavy cream, with this chocolate bar (chopped to tiny pieces), 1 tsp of butter.  Again mixed it all in and let sit to cool. 

It dries out and you can tell when you pipe, because those little tips won't fall as a 'wetter' batter would. Not only that, since I used the Trader Joe's Almond Meal, it takes a little shorter time to bake.

I did about 9 mins instead of the normal 10 mins with normal almond meal at 320 degrees.  Keep in mind the chocolate powder is already drying out the batter.  If you kept at 10 mins it will burn and crack your shell.  So adjust accordingly.

At the end it doesn't look too bad, as a matter of fact, it's the first ones to go.  So I'm quite happy with the turn out. ^_^

Rose Macarons

So for the same wedding I was making the Durian cookies.

I made some rose ones... 

Just 1.5 tsp of rose water goes a long way, especially when they are very potent.

I always like it to go with a white chocolate filling.  You do about 3oz of white chocolate chip with 1 tsp of butter (room temp) and make sure you get 1/3 c of heavy cream (heated) and mix it all together with the rose water. 

Let cool before using.  I like to put it in the fridge for a day or two before using it.  Make sure you use saran wrap and have the plastic stick to the chocolate so it won't form a skin.  When it forms a skin, the rest of the bowl of chocolate doesn't get harden as easily.

Pretty pink with the rose gel, huh?  

Once baked, I piped the shell with a different tip.  Recently my favorite is the star tip, and it comes out prettier once you put the top and bottom together.  It's definitely add a fancy spin to it.

Durian Macaron

So a friend of mine is getting married and she asked if I can make some macarons, one of the unusual request: 

Yep, you got it, Durian.  It's very much an Asian thing, but personally, I'm not a big fan, never was.  Not that I haven't tried the fruit itself, but just not a fan of it.

You can easily find that flavor at the Chinese grocery store, but I use the yellow gel coloring to make a distinction.

See, it's pretty bright here...

Unfortunately when it bakes, it muted the colors.  So if you want it more bright, add more color.  Sadly couple of them cracked.

I had done the fillings ahead of time.   You mix 1/3 cup of heavy cream, mixed with 3 oz of white chocolate, 1 tsp of butter (room temp), 1/4 tsp of the flavoring.  Since it's pretty strong scented and what not, go easy on the flavoring is best.

You put the white chocolate (cut in chunk or chip form) in a glass bowl.  Heat up the cream until it bubbles.  Pour over the white chocolate, and drop in the butter.  Stir part way and then add the flavoring.  Then stir until no more chocolate or butter in sight.  If you want to add coloring, like I did here, this is a good time.  I kept using the gel but if you have it in drops that works pretty well too.

Put it in the fridge and put a layer of saran wrap on top of the chocolate, and I mean literally on top of it touching, so that it will not create a layer or skin.  Then put it in the fridge.  I usually do this part a day or two in advance so that the chocolate will have time to solidify.

You can use the star tip like I did, above, it gives a wavey shape from the side.  I squeeze the 2 cookies together and voila!  Here you go!

It was a hit at the party, I'm surprise that almost most of them cookies were gone.

Pumpkin Macaron

Since I didn't do too well last time on the Italian method, I thought I'd give it a try... just needed to conquer it... rawr!

You put 1-to-1 almond flour & powdered sugar, sifted and mix together.  Then add 2 egg whites into the mix.

Mix everything together so it becomes a paste... mostly just make sure no dry ingredient is not incorporated.

Then you whip the 2 egg whites on low, at the same time boil white sugar with 37g of water (which is a few drops) and boil to 112 degrees.  

When you sugar reached the temperature, you pour into your whipping egg whites, and turn it on high.

Of course, you add the egg whites to the paste and it'll become running batter, and slowly become macaronnage.  Then you're ready to pipe.

Kinda mixed results here... tons of little points (nipples) but a few turned out flat, so that's good.  

But look at the feet, it looked good based on the feet.  For sure the Italian method consistently gives a good pied.  French method is a tad touch and go, but then since I'm comfortable with that method, I'm pretty certain I can get there.

Now, what makes it a pumpkin is that I added 2tsp of pumpkin spice into the dry ingredient.  The filling, we did a pumpkin buttercream.  Just butter (room temp), powdered sugar, and slowly add in the pumpkin pie filling until fully incorporated.  And it will look wet, just have to keep going until it's incorporate into the paste.

Good luck!

Apple Cinnamon Macaron

These shells were done with the Italian method, totally annoyed with the 'nipples' on the shells... they should behave better than that!  Rawr!

For the shells, I put 3 tsp of cinnamon in the dry ingredient and then weigh out the rest of the dry ingredients.

For the filling, I used this filling,  but modified.

So, it asked for 1/4 cup of butter (room temp)
3 cups of powdered sugar

1 tsp of vanilla

2 tsp of cinnamon

3 tbsp of apple juice

Whip all ingredients until smooth

Instead of all the powdered sugar, I substituted 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp of honey.  Some people use agave nectar, but honey is just as good.  As above, whip everything together until smooth.  The flavor is still there, but no corn starch in case anybody is sensitive or allergic to it.

Chocolate Cranberry Macs

For David's work pot luck, he thought it'd be fun to have some macarons as dessert. So, along with the Pumpkin Spice Mac, I decided to make some chocolate cranberry macs.
Ahh, the beautiful shell, if I may say so myself.
I'm just so in love with them... so pretty with feet.
Here they are packed and ready to go... but here's the ganache recipe:

Chocolate Cranberry Ganache
2oz chocolate (I used Ghiradelli's)
2oz heavy cream (that's about 1/4 c)
1oz chopped cranberry
1/4 tsp butter (room temp)

1, put the chocolate pieces in a glass bowl or bowl that can contain heat
2, heat up the cream until it starts to bubble and remove from heat
3, pour over the chocolate
4, stir and feel free to add butter until all are melted
5, add cranberry bits and mixe well
6, finally, cool or put in fridge until it solidify

Then you're ready to sandwich them between shells

I also submitted this for MacTweet, check them out!

Pumpkin Spice Macaron

For David's work, he would like to have some pumpkin macarons for their Thanksgiving pot luck. I don't mind trying new recipes, so thought why the heck not.
There are alot of pumpkin mac recipes out there in the interweb. In my head, I was thinking I would only spice up the filling. After all, I read that Pierre Herme' consider putting flavor in your macaron shell as unacceptable. He believe in the flavor coming from the filling. But, since I'll only be adding a dry ingredient, is that so bad to flavor the shell?

So, the normal macaron recipe:
(adapated from Mad about Macarons)
35g egg whites - room temperature
62.5g icing sugar
20g granulated sugar
45g almond flour
dash of cream of tartar
orange gel coloring
1 tsp pumpkin spice mix

1, Sift the almond flour, icing sugar, and pumpkin spice mix and set it aside.

2, Whip egg whites until foamy, then add a dash of cream of tartar. When the mixture turns more white, put the granulated sugar into the mix.*

3, Whip egg whites to soft peak, then add the orange gel color to your liking. Then continue to whip till stiff peak.

4, Fold in the almond/icing sugar/pumpkin mixture into the egg whites. Careful not to squish out the air out of the meringue.

5, Pipe out the macaron on parchment paper. Let it sit for at least 15 mins or when it forms a skin on top.

6, Baked at 320F for 9-10 mins. (start with this, dependent on your oven, the time may need to be adjusted)

7, Let cool then add filling to sandwich

*When I learned how to make the whip, I've been taught to put little in at a time. Some people like to baby-sit the sugar as it is being incorporated into the egg whites. However, as I've been reading more and learning more, dumping it all in or doing it little at a time really makes very little difference. Can you imagine restaurants and pastry shops having to baby-sit the sugar in a large quantity at a time? The only advantage of doing it little at a time is that you can avoid sugar splattered to the side of the bowls and you have to scrape. So that is entirely up to you, just make sure there's sugar in the egg whites.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pumpkin fillings:

Pumpkin Ganache (failed attempted) - need to do ahead
3 oz of white chocolate
1/3 cup of heavy cream
2 tsp of butter - room temperature
1 tsp of clove

1, put white chocolate (chopped) in a glass bowl

2, heat up the cream in a saucepan, remove when it bubbles

3, pour the cream over the white chocolate

4, stir until the chocolate is melted, then add butter. The butter add fat content to the white chocolate, but that's also why it will need over night in order for it to be in a solid state.

5, stir in the clove and mix well.

6, put in fridge until ready to use.

**Here's what went wrong: I think I had too much cream or not enough butter. I'm used to doing 3 oz of chocolate and 1/3c of cream along w/ 3 tsp of butter, but I think I should've done 1/4c of cream in order for it to work better. You can put it in the freezer, but the recipe above will 'melt' like ice cream in the macaron sandwich. So, less cream next time!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pumpkin Buttercream (2nd try)
I modified Yummy Mummy's recipe.
4 oz cream cheese, softened
3 tbsp canned pumpkin filling
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened - room temperature
2 cups confectioners sugar, sifted
1 tsp clove

1, Whip or cream the butter and add sugar into the mix.
2, Add clove and mixed until incorporated
3, Add pumpkin filling, one tablespoon at a time until smooth.
This mixture worked out so much better and very much to taste.

I also submitted this for MacTweet, check them out!

Colorful macs

So, I saw this entry a while back. I just never had the courage or comfort level to try these bright bright colors. Just because you just want to go with the standards. But the more sites I've seen, and more books I've read, the bright colors does draw you in.

Now, mine came out a tad greener than I intended, but it does have that light blue in there, I promise.
For our friends' party, who is also a macaron lover after their trip from Cannes, they are just dying to make some. But since we haven't had time to get together, I went ahead and made a bunch for the party.

One of the guests who didn't know how precious these are, just popped one into his mouth, and was like, that wasn't half bad. -_- hmm...
Of course, then I saw on Macaron Fetish, where she did 2 colors. Since we didn't know exactly how, and I wasn't prepared. So what we did was I piped half exactly the same time with David pipe the other half. That's how we made the 2 color ones. If you read more from Macaron Fetish, you see that her method is much more refine than mine... LOL.

The final flavors: Green (wanna-be-Tiffany) is chocolate mint ganache. Yellow is lemon white chocolate ganache*. Rose was milk chocolate rose ganache.

Basic Ganache Recipe
3oz of chocolate of choice
1/3cup of heavy cream
1 or 2 tbsp of flavor (optional)
1/8tsp of butter

Leave the butter to room temperature, set aside. Chop up chocolate into small pieces and place in a glass bowl. Heat up the cream and remove when you see bubble in the pan. Pour it over the chocolate. Start stirring(some people advise that you let it sit for 5 mins, I don't). I do put the butter in there at this point as I'm trying to get the lumps of chocolate out to smooth. Once it looked smooth, it's time to add the flavoring. Keep stirring, the chocolate should become smooth and shiny. Add coloring for white chocolate if you like.

Once it's all smooth, place a saran wrap over the chocolate but not over the bowl. Meaning, place the wrap on top of the chocolate so that it won't form a skin layer over the chocolate. Place it in either the freezer or fridge. If it's milk or dark chocolate it takes about 15mins in the fridge, 5 mins in the freezer for it to become ganache-ish. Check often, it should become this ribbon-like texture, not too liquidity but not solid either.

*The white chocolate ganache was a pain. After reading a bit, because it has less fat content in the chocolate, it took longer to 'solidify'. I put it in the freezer for 20 mins and it didn't become ribbon-like. It was still liquid all the way even though the flavor was good.

So, the trick apparently it's one of two things: either, I keep the same recipe but do it a day ahead to give it time (preferably overnight) for it to 'solidify'. OR, according to Baking 911, is to do 3 part white chocolate and 1 part cream.

Will have to test it out next round...