Pistachio macaron with cardamom-orange blossom mousse

Probaly, I haven't ever baked such tiny macarons before. Though they didn't turn out quite as green as I hoped. Maybe it is not even possible to get an intense green colour without some artificial colouring and that is something I would never use. Anyway, I was totally happy with the result and the taste...mmmhhh! Maybe even better than the hazelnut macs. The filling is a light and fluffy orange blossom mousse with a touch of cardamom. These two were made to be together, an unbeatable combination!

Ingredients:
(macaron shell recipe by Tartelette)

80 g aged egg whites

25 g sugar

100 g ground pistachios

100 g icing sugar

100 g sugar

35 g water

for the mousse:
2 egg yolks
70 g sugar
70 ml water
1 tablespoon orange blossom water
1 tablespoon lime juice
2 pinches of ground cardamom
2 gelatine sheets
250 ml heavy cream

Beat 40 g of egg whites with 25 g of sugar until it forms peaks. Meanwhile make the syrup: bring 100 g sugar with 35 g water to boil and as soon as it has reached  110°C remove it from the heat and add it to the beaten egg whites in a thin stream while beating constantly. Keep on beating until it has cooled down, this takes about 10 minutes. Stir the other 40 g of egg whites, unbeaten to the sieved pistachio-icing sugar mixture. Preheat the oven to 150°C. Pipe macarons onto a silicon sheet or a baking paper covered baking sheet. Bake macarons for 13-15 minutes depending on the oven or a few minutes longer if you make bigger ones.
For the mousse bring sugar with water to the boil, add orange blossom water, lime juice and ground cardamom. Pour syrup to the egg yolks and whisk it over steam until it become thick and foamy. Stir in the previously soaked gelatine and finally fold in the beaten cream. Pour it into a piping bag and chill for at least 2 hours, then fill the macaron shells.

Mint - White Chocolate Ganache

Well, somewhen in October I saw a huge box full with candy canes and though I have never really liked them, I took a bunch with me. I thought they might be handy to use in one or the other photo during the holiday time. Then I had the sudden idea to make macarons with mint-white chocolate ganache, but I had no time to bake them until today! After last week's baking "stress", it felt so good to spend some time making these macarons and relax.

Ingredients:
(recipe by Tartelette)

80 g aged egg whites

25 g sugar

100 g almond flour

100 g icing sugar

100 g sugar

35 g beet juicefor the filling:

100 g white chocolate
50 g cream
5-7 mint leaves
natural green food colouring (chlorophyll)

Beat 40 g of egg whites with 25 g of sugar until it forms peaks. Meanwhile make the syrup: bring 100 g sugar with 35 g beet juice to boil and as soon as it has reached  110°C remove it from the heat and add it to the beaten egg whites in a thin stream while beating constantly. Keep on beating until it has cooled down, this takes about 10 minutes. Stir the other 40 g of egg whites, unbeaten to the sieved almond-icing sugar mixture. Preheat the oven to 150°C. Pipe macarons onto a silicon sheet or a baking paper covered baking sheet. Bake macarons for 13-15 minutes depending on the oven or a few minutes longer if you make bigger ones. For the ganache bring cream with mint leaves to the boil and pour it over the chopped chocolate. Add chlorophyll and stir until smooth. Refrigirate for 1-2 hours.

Pumpkin Seed Oil White Chocolate Ganache

Well, I hope that you are not yet bored of macarons! However, now I am here with a ganache, that might sound a bit bizarre, but I must confess, for me it was love at first bite! In fact, I could hardly resist not to eat it all before filling the macarons. But I made it! You know those nasty calories helped to contain myself. Probably, it is a daring combination, well it is indeed, but it was a great success! Of course everything depends on the quality of the ingredients you use, so get the best you can afford. By the way, I almost could not share these green cuties with you, because my camera did not want to give back that gorgeous colour, so yesterday morning, I've decided to take photos every half an hour. You have no idea how happy I've been, when finally, I had some useable photos, of course even those needed some work on the pc, but still! Ah, and right then, when I finished taking the photos the background crashed some of the macarons! At least, I had a good pretext to eat them!

Ingredients: 
45 g cream
100 g white chocolate
70 g pumpkin seed oil

Bring cream over low heat to the boil, while waiting chop white chocolate and put it into a bowl. Pour hot cream over the chocolate and wait for a few seconds, so that the chocolate gets warm and then stir it with a wooden spoon until it melts. Add oil in a thin strain while stirring constantly.

The big disovery?!

Yesterday afternoon, I baked a bunch of pumpkin seed macarons, that means that I have simply added some ground pumpkin seeds to the batter. While piping the macarons, I was thinking about all those gorgeous and colourful macarons out there, and I was wondering how could I make such too. My problem is that I am not willing to use any artficial colouring and when I used powders the batter is just not the same and I end up with large and flat macarons. So, that is also not really an option. Later on, while seeking for a bar of white chocolate, I discovered beet juice and had the sudden idea of using it instead of the water when preparing the syrup for the macarons. So today, I gave it a try and I felt extremly happy, because it has worked out!!! Do you know what that means?! Actually, there are endless possibilites, because there are so many juices out there, so now it is possibly to bake macarons in almost any natural colour! I hope at least, that it works out with fruit juices as well! Just imagine using raspberry or black currant or even spinach? I can't wait to try more of them! And if for some reason would not work? Well, at least now I have rose macarons in my repertory.

Raspberry Parfait

Last friday I baked two more bunches of macarons, half of them ended up as a birthday gift. While waiting for the lemon macarons to be baked, I was a bit nervous because of the additional tumeric powder, but all worked out well. The only difference was that those were flatter, but still had nice feets. The lemon macarons were filled with lemon curd, the normal ones I decorated with dried rose petals and filled with rose water scented wild raspberry parfait. This year there are a whole lot more raspberries available in the woods, like any other year before. So after this tiny macaron overdose, I am going to come back with something salty this week, though, desserts are also on my plan.

Ingredients:

250 g  raspberry puree

1-2 teaspoon rose water

2 gelatine sheets

40 g egg white

100 g sugar

35 g water

100 ml cream

Cook a syrup with the sugar and water and as soon as it boils and has reached 120°C pour it in a thin stream into the halfly beaten egg whites, and beat until stiff and it cooles down. Melt the previously soaked gelatine in a tablespoon of water over low heat and stir it into the raspberry puree. Stir in the italian meringue and the beaten cream. Freeze for 2-3 hours.

Hazelnut Macaron with Caramel-Coffee Ganache

Well, macarons again, and hold on, I am right on my way to bake another bunch with fruit filling. I haven't decided yet, if it should be lemon or raspberry, but probably, I am going to make both versions. Nah, what should I do, I still have leftover egg whites. Anyway, today I decided to try yesterday's recipe with hazelnut and cocoa powder. You can imagine how nervous I was while waiting for the feets to appear. Oh, and they did! Though I had some macarons with cracked top, but this happens always. Half of them I filled with dark chocolate ganache, the other half with a caramel-coffee ganache.

Ingredients: 

(based on a recipe by Pierre Hermé)

70 g sugar

30 g cream

1 teaspoon instant coffee

30 g butter

30 g white chocolate

 

Melt sugar over low heat and let it caramelise. Meanwhile bring cream together with the coffee to the boil and pour it over the amber caramel. Pour caramel-cream mixture over the chopped white chocolate and stir until it is molten, then stir in the butter.

 

Macarons with Red Currant Curd

Actually, I went to the kitchen to cook something for lunch, but I felt so empty and had no idea, so I decided to bake macarons instead. Well, I still have no idea, what to cook, but I have a nice bunch of macarons. Somehow I always postponed making Italian merinuge based macarons, and what a mistake this was! I have never managed to bake white macarons before, but today finally it just happened! It seems, that I made one step towards imporving my macaron baking skill. I am so happy with these batch of macarons, and now I feel like I could bake macarons all day long. I already have some egg whites ageing and I can not wait to bake another bunch! I have never been a big fan of macarons, but these made me love them.  When I had two sheets baked, I decided to add some cocoa powder to the batter and even those worked out! I was thrilled! So far I always had problems with cocoa powder in the batter, but not this time. For the filling I took an old and almost forgotten recipe of mine that is actually a raspberry curd, but now I've prepared it with red currants.

Ingredients:
(recipe by Tartelette)

80 g aged egg whites

25 g sugar

100 g almond flour

100 g icing sugar

100 g sugar

35 g water

for the filling:

200 g red currant puree
120 g icing sugar

2 egg yolks

150 g butter

Beat 40 g of egg whites with 25 g of sugar until it forms peaks. Meanwhile make the syrup: bring 100 g sugar with 35 g water to boil and as soon as it has reached  110°C remove it from the heat and add it to the beaten egg whites in a thin stream while beating constantly. Keep on beating until it has cooled down, this takes about 10 minutes. Stir the other 40 g of egg whites, unbeaten to the sieved almond-icing sugar mixture. Preheat the oven to 150°C. Pipe macarons onto a silicon sheet or a baking paper covered baking sheet. Bake macarons for 13-15 minutes depending on the oven or a few minutes longer if you make bigger ones. For the filling whisk together red currant puree with icing sugar and the egg yolks and beat it over steam until it thickens. Remove and whisk in room temperature butter. Chill curd for 2-3 hours.

Macarons with Tonka Bean Cream

Well, honestly, I am not so much a macaron fan, I do enjoy one or two once in a while, but the rest of my family is absolutly addicted and they do appriciate very much when I bake a bunch. Luckily, meanwhile I've learnt to bake them so I can surprise them once in a while, as I enjoy baking macarons very much, besides it is a great way to use leftover egg whites, if not one of the best ways. By the way, once I had to bake a bunch as a surprise, but it just did not work out. I had no other opportunity then to use fresh egg whites and oh wonder it worked out. I was extremly happy! These macarons were baked somewhen last week and I decided to fill them with tonka bean cream.


Ingredients:
for the macaron:
125 g finely ground almond
210 g powder sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
100 g egg whites
30 g sugar
for the cream:
(adapted fromTartelette)
100 g sugar
2 egg whites
170 g butter, room temperature
tonka bean


Preheat the oven to160°C. Sieve powder sugar, cocoa powder and almond flour, then stir until it is combined. Beat egg white with the sugar then fold it into the almond flour mixture. Fill batter into a piping bag and pipe macarons onto a baking paper covered baking sheet. Let it stand for 30 minutes to dry, then bake for about 15 minutes. For the cream beat egg whites with sugar over steam until shiny, then remove, stir in butter and ground tonka bean.

Hazelnut Macaron

Ehm...well, I know it was only yesterday when I said, enough chocolate. It is really not my fault... (*grins*), but while organising the fridge I found some leftover milk chocolate ganache and also some aged egg whites. It would have been a shame to throw them out, right? So I decided to bake hazelnut macarons, by the way for the first time, and fill them with the milk chocolate ganache. Actually, I am not a fan of milk chocolate, but it made a pretty nice filling among some crushed, roasted hazelnuts.

Ingredients:
70 g egg whites (aged for 5 days and brought the room temperature the night before)
90 g hazelnut flour
122 g powder sugar
40 g sugar
lemon juice
1 pinch of salt


Preheat oven to 150°C. Sift together powder sugar and hazelnut flour, or use a food processor for this. Beat egg whites, until they form a peak, add 2 drops of lemon juice and a pinch of salt bring to a foam like texture then progressively add the sugar. Add half of the powder sugar and nuts to the beaten egg whites and mix well using a rubber spatula. Once the mixture is well blended, add the remaining powders and continue to blend together. Pipe out the macarons onto a silicon sheet or greaseproof paper and let it stand for 30 minutes. Bake for 13 minutes for small macarons and a few more minutes for large macarons. Let slightly cool before removing the macarons from the silicon sheet. For the milk chocolate ganache cream 75 g butter in a bowl, and chop 90 g milk chocolate and put it in another bowl. Bring 55 ml milk to boil and pour it over the chopped chocolate and whisk it together with a help of a wooden spoon. As soon as it has reached 60°C stir in the butter.

Macarons again!

This is something, I thought would never happen to me. Now I am in love, no, this is an obsession! If it just wouldn't be so hard to wait, until the days are over that are necessary to age the egg whites. Yes, I cought the macaron fever. And the only medicine is to bake, bake and bake! My head is full of ideas and combinations. I think this Christmas every friend of mine going to recieve a box of them. Anyway, for the second batch I prepared a white chocolate ganache flavoured with saffron and vanilla.


Ingredients:
250 g white chocolate
50 ml cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 g saffron


Heat cream with vanilla and saffron and pour it over the white chocolate. Mix until the chocolate is molten and let is stand for 1-2 hours, until the ganache reached the desired consistency.

Macarons - Daring Bakers

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. who chose "Macarons" from Claudia Fleming’s "The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern" as the challenge recipe. Well, I must say, so far none of the challanges made me so nervous like this one. Macarons. What?! Oh my...I thought when I checked out what the challenge is, yeah macarons. I read it right. I remembered my first attempt some 2 years ago, all macarons cracked, but at least they had a "feet". The second trial almost a year after, nice top, no feet. I thought no way, that this time I can make it. I hardly trusted my eyes when I looked in the oven: I had good looking macarons in there with feet and a whole top! I was almost speechless and extremly happy! Yeah, the 3rd trial and it worked! I called my mom immediately to tell her, because she was there when I failed with my second trial. To celebrate my first macaron success, I decided to prepare Pierre Hermé's passion fruit - chocolate ganache, and I guess it was the best choice I could make!



Ingredients:
80 g butter, room temperature
12 maracujas
30 g acacia honey
460 g milk chocolate
180 g hazelnut, whole


Cut butter in cubes. Half passion fruits and scratch out the seeds and press them through a strainer. Bring the passion fruit juice together with the honey to boil. Melt chocolate over steam and stir in the fruit juice and after the butter. Set aside and let it cool. Fill macarons with the ganache and place one whole roasted hazelnut in the middle of each.