Vanilla beans macarons with lemon curd

After many fail-carons, I'm finally able to close the chapter with this happy feet-Macarons! It's rather frustrating and annoying whenever the bakes fail, but usually I would try & try until they turn out right. Just like these little macarons, really put my preserverance to test! Urgggh....

With each macaron that failed, I would go in search for other 'easy' recipes. And I'm lucky to find one recipe in Brave Tart that I can manage, though I made a few modifications on the steps. I find her 10 myths and 10 commandments on macaron very useful, and pretty easy to understand.

French Macarons

(Slight modifications, and I did a quarter of the original recipe)
115g almond meals
230g powdered sugar
144g egg whites, temperature and age not important! (I used 5-days aged egg white, room temp)
72g sugar
the scrapings of 1 vanilla bean or 2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp (2g) salt

1 ) Preheat oven to 150 deg C.

2) Sift almond meals and icing sugar, or blitz them in food processor and sift. Set aside.

3) In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the egg whites, sugar and beans (not the extract) and salt and turn the mixer to medium (4 on KA) for 3 mins. Increase speed to medium-high (7 on KA) and whip another 3 mins, and speed 8 for another 3 mins.

4) Turn mixer off and add in any extracts or colour and whip for a final min on highest speed, till well mixed.

5) The egg mixture will be a very stiff and dry meringue, where there will be a big clump of meringue in the centre of whisk.

6) Put all dry ingredients into the meringue and fold them in with a rubber spatula. Use both folding motion to incorporate the dry ingredients and a pressing motion to deflate the meringue against the side of the bowl.

7) Transfer the batter into piping bag and pipe onto non-stick baking sheet.

8) After piping, hold the sheet pan and hit it hard against the counter to dislodge any large air bubbles that might cause the macarons to crack.

**The original recipe does not require drying the shells before baking. But I did dry them in the oven which was pre-heated at 130 deg C for about 8 mins (oven is off during drying the shells), a tip I learnt from Honey Bee Sweet.

9) Bake for about 18 mins or until the macarons can be easily peel off from the baking sheet. If it still sticks, continue to bake for a min and constantly check when it's done.

10) Cool the macaron on the baking pan before peeling the cooled macarons from the baking sheet.

11) Sandwich the macaron with your favourite filling, eg lemon curd, and leave in fridge overnight in air-tight container for flavour to infuse and for biscuit to soften.

Enjoy!



Since there are still some aged egg whites in the fridge (though aged egg white is not necessary in this recipe), I'm likely to make the last round of chocolate macarons. Stay tuned!

Vanilla beans lemon curd

For the past weeks, I've been trying my hands on macarons and sadly I've got more fail-carons than those delicate beauties. Gone were at least a dozen of egg whites, almond meals, icing sugar... Some fail-carons were still edible even though they were feetless, some were over-baked, some were under-baked, some were coyingly sweet, some were as flat as the airplane runway, some were undermixed and looked rough and tough, etc. The last I did was a vanilla beans macaron with a sunset yellow hue, with pretty feets that I thought I was lucky but it failed on me again! It doesn't help that I only realised it after I started preparing a nice vanilla beans lemon curd filling for what was supposed to be a pretty orangey-yellow macaron. I can't sleep and function well without successfully baking an attractive looking and yummy macarons, literally. I've just separated the eggs to age this morning, and let's see what happen next?



Meanwhile, the only consolation out of so many failures was the real tangy lemon curd, which I had modified using Frozen wings' passionfruit curd. Simply easy and delicious on its own!



Vanilla beans lemon curd
(Yields about 235gm curd)

Ingredients/ Method:
2 egg yolks
1 whole egg
lemon juice from 2 lemons (rind and freshly squeezed)
zest from 2 lemons
2 tbsp caster sugar
seeds from 1 vanilla bean
50gm unsalted butter

1) Put all ingredients except butter in a bowl over simmering water, at low heat.
2) Using a hand whisk, stir the mixture continuously until thicken (looks like baby porridge). It should take around 7-8 minutes. (According to Frozen wings, the mixture is ready when it is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon.)
3) Remove from fire and put in the butter and continue to stir until the butter has melted.
4) Let the mixture cool and store in a sterilised jar and refrigerate.

Lemon Meringue Cake

Today's my birthday and it started with a long day but wonderful and lovely with lots of people closest to me. Before the DAY, I was busy preparing a birthday cake for myself and ended till the wee hours. Although I had in mind a cake to make, I was deliberating whether to bake or not to bake. Ended up I started baking preparation late in the night (like 9.30pm). So I was practically still baking the cake when the clock striked twelve i.e. on my birthday! And the cake was only frosted in the morning, just before the time we were supposedly to leave the house and picked up my family members for brunch! I was rushing. TL commented that I must have rushed to come to this world. Period.

Being a super inefficient and bad planner me, this was a tedious birthday cake to make. If any other bakers were to see me in this state, they would probably looked in exasperation. One thing for sure, I can't bake for a living, hah!

Anyway, whilst planning for my own birthday cake, I was flipping the new recipe book I got last month - "My Birthday Cake" by Kevin Chai. The pictures are all alluring but I finally decided on a Lemon Meringue Cake because I was left with 3 lemons sitting in the fridge for ages. Ironically, I did not followed the recipe in the book, the final cake was an assembly of various recipes.

Lemon Curd
(Recipe adapted from The Little Teochew)

60g unsalted butter
200g sugar
2 eggs + 2 egg yolks
120ml fresh lemon juice (from 2.5 lemons)
1 tsp grated lemon zest, or more if you like (depending on how strong you want the flavour of lemon)

1. In a large bowl, whisk all the ingredients except the butter*. Mix well. Place the bowl over a bain-marie** (water bath) and stir constantly. The mixture may look curdled, but it will smooth out as it cooks.
2. If you want a more subtle taste of lemon, do not add the zest at this stage. Set aside with the butter.
3. Once the mixture thickens - it should leave a path on the back of a spoon - turn off the flame and add butter in 2 or 3 additions. If you have not added in your lemon zest, add it in now and stir to mix well.
4. Allow the curd to cool slightly before transferring to a clean jar or bowl. Strained the curd to get a smooth curd. Make sure it is covered to prevent a skin from forming. Chill in the refrigerator. The curd will thicken further as it cools. Covered tightly, it will keep in the refrigerator for a week and in the freezer for 2 months.

Genoise Cake Batter
(Recipe adapted, doubled and slightly modified from Honey Bee Sweets)

86g clarified butter (or unsalted butter)
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
2 large eggs + 1 egg yolk (100g + 18g)
100g caster sugar
66g cake flour
66g corn flour

1. Preheat the oven to 175C.
2. To prepare the butter, in a microwavable bowl, warm the butter until hot. Stir in the vanilla bean paste, cover and keep warm.
3. To prepare the egg mixture; in the bowl of a stand mixer set over a pan of simmering water, heat the eggs, yolk, and sugar until just lukewarm to the touch, stirring constantly with a long handled whisk to prevent curdling.
4. Immediately remove the bowl to the stand mixer and attach the whisk beater. Beat on high speed for a minimum of 5 minutes. It will more than quadruple in volume and very thick and airy.
5. Remove almost 1/2 cup of the beaten egg mixture and whisk it thoroughly into the melted butter.
6. Sift about half of the flour over the remaining egg mixture, fold it in gently but rapidly until almost all the flour has disappeared. Repeat with the remaining flour until all traces of the flour have disappeared.
7. Fold in the butter mixture until just incorporated. Make sure you reach into the bottom of the pan to be sure to moisten all the flour.
8. Pour the batter into the prepared 7" cake tin.
9. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until golden brown and the skewer inserted into the cake came out clean.
Note: To prevent the collapse of its delicate foam structure, while still hot, the genoise must be unmould as soon as it is baked.

Meringue
(Recipe adapted from My Birthday Cake by Kevin Chai)

70g egg whites
60g caster sugar (reduced from 70g)
40g ground almond
25g dessicated coconut
10g plain flour

1. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form.
2. Gradually add in sugar, continue beating until stiff peaks form.
3. Combine ground almond, dessicated coconut and flour, and fold into egg white mixture.
4. Spread meringue onto 2 sheets of 7" diameter of round greaseproof paper.
5. Bake at 170 deg C for 25 mins or until golden brown.

Crystallized Lemon
(Recipe adapted from My Birthday Cake by Kevin Chai)

Half a lemon (sliced) - this is what I had left
50g caster sugar
25ml water

1. Bring sugar and water to boil.
2. Add in lemon slices and continue to cook on low heat until sugar thickens.
3. Remove and leave to cool.

Lemon Curd Cream
1 cup whipping cream
Slightly more than 1/4 cup lemon curd

1. Whisk whipping cream until stiff peak.
2. Add in lemon curd into whipped cream and continue to beat at low speed until well combined.
3. Stored in fridge until ready to use.

Assemble the Cake

1. Slice the cake into 3 portions.
2. Spread lemon curd cream onto a slice of cake and sandwich with meringue.
3. Continue step (2) and cover with another slice of cake.
4. Coat the entire cake with remaining cream.
5. Decorate crystallized lemon slices onto the cake.
6. Pipe lemon curd on the cake in any design.

Unfortunately, the genoise sponge cake did not work for me this time and I strongly believe it's because I didn't manage the techniques required. The texture was densed although not dry. I must work very hard to get THE sponge cake. Overall, the combination of lemon curd/cream, genoise sponge cake and meringue is a twist to a conventional cake, rather refreshing I would say. As usual, my family members are very supportive and finished up the cake!


I'm submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #5: Fruity March hosted by Jess of Bakericious.

Lemon Passionfruit Curd

I was reading the Sundaytimes and saw this receipe by Tan Hsueh Yun "Hunger Management", and the picture of tart with lemon and passionfruit curd is simply irresistible. I quickly know that this is something I must do it. I bought the passionfruit fresh from the supermarket, but I was simply too 'busy' baking my muffins till the passionfruit turns 'wrinkled' in the fridge.



I was thinking it's either the passionfruit really dried up and goes to the bin, if not, I've to do it really soon. The weekend is supposed to be good time to do any baking, but little zak always take up most, if not all, of my time. I started to grate the lemon zest, and zak keeps wanting me to carry and play with him. End up, I only finished grating the lemon zest in the evening when T is back from work. Luckily, the seemingly 'wrinkled' passionfruit is still very juicy inside.



My baking venture always has its 'mishap', this is no exception - I realised that my house runs out of sugar. So I 'pitifully' asked T to get a pack of sugar from nearby store - at 11pm! When I started putting all ingredients into the pot, I realised that the pot is too small for everything to be put in (oh no!), the mixture doesn't thicken after 20 minutes as the recipe says, there isn't proper glass jars in my house for me to store the end-product, etc.



Luckily, everything ends quite well! I'm going to use this curd for tarts, so till then, it is sitting in my fridge....