Playing with my Food: DBs do Macarons

When our hostess this month chose macarons, I had to laugh, seeing as just a few weeks ago I was making macs for Jamie's mac-a-thon. I pretty much hadn't made macarons since I became obsessed with figuring them out a couple of years ago and now here I was making them over and over again. Back when I was trying them out, I'd made a number of traditional flavors, but hadn't gotten around to making matcha-flavored macs.
Matcha has been of interest to me ever since I participated in a traditional tea ceremony on one of the several occasions I visited Japan. I don't remember all the details of it, the only part that stuck with me being how you have to turn the bowl twice clockwise with your right hand as it sits on the palm of your left hand several times throughout. It's a beautiful ceremony and an activity that merits the detour if you ever have the opportunity to see it being done or participate in it.

It didn't occur to me to use matcha as an ingredient until I tasted green tea ice cream and became fixated on green tea mochi many years after the above-mentioned ceremony. Then at Sadaharu Aoki's shop in Paris I had one of his green tea-chestnut pastries, on one of the rare occasions when I wasn't having his yuzu tart (be still my beating heart), and fell in love with the combination. Of course the sugar-daddy of them all, Pierre Hermé, also makes a green tea-chestnut macaron, but as I've never seen it in his shop I haven't tried his (keep reading).

So when came time to pick a flavor for this challenge, I decided to make matcha macarons with sweet chestnut paste filling. It's a perfect fall combination in terms of both the flavors and colors and is a perfect companion to a chilly afternoon cup of tea or coffee. Making the matcha version was uneventful, but this is the part where I'll admit that I then tried to make Pierre Hermé's chestnut macarons (to pair with a matcha buttercream) which basically consist of making an Italian meringue and adding sweetened chestnut paste to the almond/meringue batter, and the result was not macarons but sweet meringue cookies, quite puffy but without any feet whatsoever. It's quite possible that, having followed his recipe faithfully, I'm now intrigued enough to try and make chestnut macarons shells again, but I might not use sweetened chestnut puree, I might just dry and process chestnuts into a powder and add that to the shell batter instead. There's no telling what I might do really, I can be stubborn like that.

Anyway, I should have added more matcha powder to the batter but I only used one teaspoon (I couldn't remember the recommended amount) and didn't add any food coloring, resulting in very light green shells. Once the shells were ready, I decided to play with my food, and therein you see the result. It was fun actually, I have at least three ideas I couldn't execute for this post for lack of time but I think it might almost be more fun to make macaron shells just so I can play with them rather than eat them, I'm just saying...

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

keep reading >>

It's done so have some Chocolate Fleur de Sel Macs

If you've been here before this is a totally new look since the very beginning of this blog. I mean I know at the beginning of the year I said I was going to do all this stuff and then life got in the way, so I changed the header a little bit and changed the widths and everything and that was that for a little while. But since I decided a few weeks ago that I was going to change the blog entirely and make it less about food and a little more about other things like photography and whatever strikes my fancy, it's been bugging me to change it up completely. So this is what I came up with messing around with the code, making some headers with one of my old scanned photographs, and generally tweaking here and there. I hope you like it. If you don't, that's too bad, unless of course it means you want to offer me your coding and graphic design skills for free to make it more the way you'd like it to be.

This is also the inaugural post of every post isn't going to be about food anymore, as I said before, sometimes it's just going to be one picture or just a thought or whatever strikes my fancy, or not. Your guess is as good as mine although I'd like to say I think it will be easier for me to post more frequently that way, which will be nice for both me and you. And just for the pleasure of contradicting myself, particularly the part about how this isn't going to be only about food anymore, have some chocolate macarons on me, half of them have fleur de sel on the shells, the other half are plain. They were made from Aran of Cannelle et Vanille's recipe and they are for the previously mentioned Mac-athon organized by Jamie of Life's a Feast. They're not beautiful like Aran's but they sure do taste good. The filling is a chocolate mousse sort of concoction conjured up from the same batch of Swiss meringue and fromage frais mixture that went into the filling for the mango macs. And with that I leave you my friends.

Mango-Passion Fruit Macarons for Rachel and the Livestrong Taste of Yellow Event

I don't think I know anyone that hasn't been touched by the C word in some way, whether it be through a family member, a friend, a lover, an acquaintance even. In my family, my maternal grandmother passed away of breast cancer when I was 6 and my paternal grandfather, one of my most favorite people in the world ever, lived with colon and prostate cancer for 17 years before his body finally gave up on him, even though his mind was still sharp. Parents of dear friends have succumbed to it, others have fought through and are still with us now to my great relief, but most recently my friend Rachel has been touched by it for the second time in her life. I suppose it wouldn't be so incredible if you didn't know that a) she's a little younger than me (I'm 34) and b) she was 15 the first time she had cancer. As if having cancer only once wasn't enough, let alone when you're a teenager trying to become an adult, this time she has an entirely different kind of cancer than the first.

So when I realized that it was time for the annual Livestrong with a taste of yellow event organized by Barbara of Winos and Foodies, herself a cancer survivor, I knew I had to make something for Rachel, and a happy coincidence resulted in my making these macarons for her.
See, when I'm taking care of Baby Saffron I often can't do much with both hands in spite of my awesome baby carrier, so I spend a lot of quality time with my iPhone sometimes, and the easiest way to spend time on the iPhone happens to be on Twitter. There I get to chat with some of my favorite blogging friends and when Jamie of Life's a Feast made macarons for the first time not too long ago, the twitter posse that she, Meeta, Deeba and I form on a regular basis started tweeting like mad about them. Before you knew it, Jamie had organized a mac-athon to get other bloggers who hadn't tried those tricky little devils to attempt making them.

I happen to be the one in the group who has made macarons before and, as luck would have it, the first time I made successful macarons two years ago, Rachel was one of the few to partake and she loved them. Rachel was my first "blog" friend back when I was blogging elsewhere and that blog wasn't a food blog at all. Her friendship made life easier for me through rough times and when she asked me to make her wedding cake she gave me an incredible boost of faith in my baking abilities. She is warm, intelligent, and thoughtful; she sings beautifully even though right now the treatment has made that difficult for her. Throughout it all she has kept her chin up and never whined.

I wasn't able to make macarons for her as wedding favors and right now we're not even in the same city, but I know she will appreciate these when she sees them, and I will be more than delighted to make them *for you again my wonderful friend.*

I made these macarons using Helen of Tartelette's powdered-strawberry macarons recipe by drying out a honey mango and grinding it to flavor the shells. I also added turmeric for color. The flavor of the shells was very delicate and, on A.'s recommendation, I might try using mango pulp instead next time I make them. Instead of the traditional buttercream I made a filling with swiss meringue, whipped cream, fromage frais, pureed mango and fresh passion fruit. The ratio of white to yellow-orange ingredients being very high, the filling is white which I prefer. You will be able to see the results of the mac-athon on Jamie's blog after the 15th of September.

Powdered Mango Macarons with Mango-Passion Fruit Filling
adapted from Helene Dujardin at Tartelette
Makes about 48 shells so ~2 dozen 3.5cm(1.5") macarons 

For the macarons shells:
- 1 Honey Mango (not too ripe)
- 90gr egg whites (between 2 and 3 Large eggs)
- 30gr granulated sugar
- 200gr confectioner's or icing sugar
- 110gr powdered almonds (I ground & sieved whole almonds)
- Turmeric or powdered yellow food coloring

For the mango powder:
- Peel and cut the mango in half. Slice one half thinly. Set aside the other half.
- Heat oven to 120C (250F). Place the mango slices in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and let dry in the oven. This could take anywhere from an hour to two hours to complete. Let cool. Grind until you can no longer make it finer (mangoes can get a bit chewy instead of dry so you may not be able to grind to a powder). Set aside.

For the macarons shells:
- I have a stand mixer but preferred to use a hand mixer instead. For stand mixer instructions go to Helen's website. Using your mixer, whip the egg whites until just foamy, then gradually add the granulated sugar until glossy and just stiff but take care not to overbeat or the macarons will fail.
- Put the confectioner's sugar, powdered almonds, powdered mango and food coloring in a food processor and pulse until well blended. You can sieve this mixture afterward to obtain an even finer texture.
- Add the meringue to the dry mixture in halve or thirds. Then fold (macaronner) the mass carefully until you obtain a batter that makes a thick flowing ribbon. The process of macaronner is defined as folding the batter from back to front with one hand while rotating the bowl in a counter-motion with the other hand. Be careful not to overfold your batter or it will be too liquid and spread and you won't get feet. Test your batter if you are unsure of its readiness. If there are small peaks you need to fold it a bit more, if it flattens out on its own it's ready, and if it spreads out you've overfolded.
- Using a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip (8mm for me) pipe the batter in small rounds (~3.5cm or 1.5") onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper. I don't draw circles on the parchment because I'm lazy so my macs tend to need to be paired manually when done because they're not all the same size, but if you are not lazy like me, you should draw circles out for perfectly and evenly sized macs. Take care to leave a little space in between them so the air can circulate to help them develop feet.
- Heat the oven to 140C (280F). To make them even more stable in the oven, let the macarons sit out for at least 30 minutes to harden their shells.
- Bake for 15 to 20 minutes (I usually sneak a peek under the corner one to see if they're done). Let cool a bit before removing them from the parchment.
- Store them in an airtight container until ready to use, but do not leave them more than a couple of days. They freeze well but I'm not familiar with how long they can stay frozen.

For the mango-passion fruit filling (I made this up as I was going so feel free to try your own version):
- 1/2 Honey Mango
- 2 egg whites
- 50g granulated sugar
- ~50g double cream
- ~100g fromage frais
- ~40g fresh passion fruit
- Puree the honey mango but you do not need all of it for the filling as it is very watery.
- Put the egg whites with the sugar in a bowl over simmering water (double-boiler) and heat to 100C whipping constantly. Take off the heat and continue whipping until cool (I use my stand mixer bowl for this). You should have a stiff glossy meringue (Swiss).
 - In a separate bowl, whip the cream to soft peaks. Add the fromage frais and whip until smooth. Fold in the Swiss meringue. Fold in the passion fruit and some of the mango puree so that the mixture is not too thin and will stiffen in the fridge.

When ready, assemble the macarons by piping about a tablespoon worth of filling onto one shell and pressing another shell on top. They are best eaten the day after they are assembled to allow the flavors to develop but if you're like me you may not be able to wait that long...

Mes Premiers Macarons - My First Macarons

En fait ce serait plutôt les résultats de mes deuxièmes et troisièmes tentatives de macarons... et en réalité c'était il y bien des mois, mais je n'ai pas trouvé le bon moment pour vous les présenter, et comme c'est le temps des fêtes en ce moment, je me suis dit que le moment était venu. Alors voici donc ci-dessus des macarons au chocolat (enfin les coques de macarons au chocolat) selon la recette de Guillemette pour ma deuxième tentative (la première ayant été un désastre total), qui ont été promptement dévoré avant que je les garnisse de ganache, et ci-dessous la troisième tentative, une combinaison de la méthode de Christophe Felder sur le blog de Fofil et de la méthode de la reine des macarons, la grande Mercotte. J'aime bien l'aspect différent des deux genres de macarons, ceux de Guillemette étant plus rustiques et sympathiques, les autres plus lisses et élégants.

"Le macaron gerbet est rond, lisse, composé de deux macarons accolés et garni de confiture, de crème ou de ganache. Sa création est revendiquée par le pâtissier Pierre Desfontaines, petit-fils de Louis Ernest Ladurée au début du XXe siècle."

Je voulais essayer de faire des macarons et en sachant que mes parents les préféreraient au chocolat, j'ai donc commencé par les macarons que (je ne l'ai découvert que plus tard) on dit être les plus difficiles à faire. Après une première tentative qui ne mérite pas de récit, j'ai réussi à faire des coques, mais cela m'avait tellement stressé que j'avais laissé la ganache à faire pour plus tard (je préfère faire de la ganache plutôt que la traditionelle crème au beurre) et entre temps les coques ont disparu...dans plusieurs estomacs passant par la cuisine. J'ai donc recommencé en essayant une recette différente pour voir si ça me réussirait mieux, mais comme j'avais près d'une centaine de coques, j'ai décidé d'en faire la moitié au chocolat tout simple, et l'autre moitié chocolat-violette, ayant goûté des chocolats à la violette délicieux chez Pierre Marcolini. Ils sont partis très vite, et maintenant il me faut juste la patience de m'y remettre. Je crois que la prochaine fois je vais tenter la méthode de Mingoumango en zappant les blancs d'oeufs au micro-ondes plutot que de les laisser au frigo plusieurs jours. Ca m'évitera de planifier de faire mes macarons une semaine à l'avance.



Say What? In English please...


Actually, it's more like the results of my second and third attempts at macarons... and truth be told, it was several months ago, but I couldn't find the right time to present them to you, and since it is the holidays, I thought now might be a good time. So above are chocolate macarons (well really just the chocolate shells) according to Guillemette's recipe on my second attempt (the first having been a total disaster) which were promptly devoured before I put any ganache on them, and below the third attempts, a combination between Christopher Felder's method as seen on Fofil's blog and that of the indisputable queen of macarons, the great Mercotte. I like the different aspects of the two kinds of macarons, Guillemette's being more rustic and friendly, the others smoother and more elegant.

"Translated: The gerbet macaron gerbet is round, smooth, made up of two macarons slathered with jam, cream or ganache and sandwiched together. It is claimed to have been created at the beginning of the 20th century by the pastry chef Pierre Desfontaines, grandson of Louis Ernest Ladurée."

I wanted to try to make macarons and knowing that my parents would prefer chocolate ones, I naturally started with chocolate macarons which (I only later found out) are said to be the hardest kind to make. After a first attempt which merits no explanation, I managed to make shells, but I was so stressed out by the whole process that I left making the ganache til later (I prefer filling them with ganache rather than the traditional buttercream), and they disappeared in the meantime... into several stomachs which happened to be passing through the kitchen. So I tried again using a different recipe to see if I might have a higher success ratio (say 1 for 1 instead of 1 out of 2), and when I ended up with nearly a hundred shells, I decided to put regular chocolate ganache on half of them, and chocolate and violet ganache on the other half, having just tasted some delicious violet-infused chocolates from Pierre Marcolini. They were disposed of very quickly, and now I just need the patience to make them again. I think next time I'm going to try Mingoumango's method of putting the egg whites through a seconds-only sojourn in the microwave rather than having to leave them in the refrigerator for several days beforehand. It will spare me having to plan on making macarons a week in advance.