Macaron madness

Yes, I’m on a baking rampage.. baking as many mini-macarons as I possibly can. Thought they make for a nice treat for most of the parties that we’ve been invited to. Best of all, I managed to sort of down-sized the macarons to bite-sized portions that will go so well with a cuppa coffee/tea.

Made these Blue Macarons with Nutella for a breakfast party that we’ve been invited to. Hopefully these tiny gems will help chase those morning blues away.

Am also going to bring along these Matcha (Green Tea) Macarons with Azuki Red Bean filling. Fingers crossed and hope my friends will like them.

I’m not going to list the recipe down for I’ve just tweaked it slightly using this recipe. For the Matcha macarons, all I did was to use half a teaspoon of matcha powder in the macaron batter. As for the Azuki Red Bean filling, you could purchase the red bean paste from Daiso. I was too lazy to make them from scratch as you can tell.

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I’ve been busy in the kitchen… Click here to check out my baking adventures in Geneva.

Orange macarons for the choco monsters

So I started baking macarons in Geneva again.  My first batch of macarons last week failed for I was in too much of a hurry to get these delights out as soon as I possibly can.  Well, there ain’t no short-cuts in making macarons and  I definitely learned it the hard way when they failed to ‘rise to the occasion’.

Well, I promised the choco monsters that I will bake them a batch of macarons to try and the dinner invite to their place tomorrow for some steamboat was perfect, for that meant I could bring along dessert.

I had the pleasure of trying Aldine’s nutella macarons recently and they tasted great!  I also thought that using the nutella filling would mean that I do not have to physically make the filling on my own.  Plus, anything with chocolate will definitely fly by with the choco-monsters, so I’m safe. But instead of the usual vanilla shells, I decided that a touch of orange would also go well with the nutella filling.

Orange Macarons with Nutella Filling
Makes about 6 filled large macarons or 14 filled bite-sized macarons

For Macaron Batter

• 1 egg white (preferably aged for 3 days) brought to room temperature
• A pinch of egg white powder (I used Dr Oetker Egg White Powder purchased in London)
• 38g icing sugar
• 36g powdered almonds
• 30g granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of orange essence
• 2 drops of gel-based yellow or orange colouring

Method:

1. Line baking tray with 2 pieces of parchment paper.
2. Sift powdered sugar with the almond powder to ensure that there are no lumps.
3. In a large mixing bowl, beat the egg white until they begin to foam. At this stage, add the pinch of egg white powder and the granulated sugar gradually.  Continue beating until very stiff and firm. When you invert the bowl, the egg white batter has to stay put. That’s the time you know when you should stop.  I decided to play it safe and whisked the egg white batter for about 5 minutes before stiff peaks were formed.  Add colouring and orange essence.  Continue to beat the egg whites on high for another 1-2 minutes.
4. Carefully fold the dry ingredients, in 3 batches, into the beaten egg whites with a flexible rubber spatula (ideally).  Stop folding when the mixture is smooth and there are no streaks of egg white.  I used about 30 strokes to incorporate the dry mixture into the egg whites.  Scrape the batter into the pastry bag (standing the bag in a tall glass helps if you’re alone).
5. Pipe the batter on the parchment-lined baking sheets in 1-inch circles, evenly spaced one-inch (3 cm) apart.
6. Rap the baking sheet a few times firmly on the counter top to flatten the macarons and to remove the air-bubbles in the macarons.
7. Leave the macarons out in the open for at least 30 minutes to an hour. This step is important to allow the top of the macaron shell to dry up so that you get a smooth surface for the macarons.  You will know when to pop the macarons into the oven when you touch the macarons and the batter does not stick to your fingers. Be careful not to leave them out too much for it will give you crunchy macarons and you don’t want that. This step is important and if you skip it, your macarons might flatten .  While waiting, preheat oven to 140 degrees C.
8. Bake for 15 mins and let cool completely before removing from baking sheet.

Assembling macarons:

1. I used nutella as the filling for the macarons.
2. Simply spoon on the macaron shell.
3. Sandwich and you are done!

It’s recommended that you let the flavours sit inside the macaron for 1 day before having them.  

Lessons learned: Thanks to blog-pal and talented Macaron princess, R from the Pleasure Monger – using egg-white powder helped give my macarons the desired smooth and shiny shells plus nicely risen and formed feet.  But I probably under-mixed the batter which is why most of my shells had a soft peak formed and they refused to settle down even after ‘resting’ for 30 minutes.

Well, I really do hope practice makes perfect.  On to my next batch of macarons then!

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I’ve been busy in the kitchen… Click here to check out my baking adventures in Geneva.