The Autumn Solstice, A visit to the Zoo and some Verrines

Today is the autumn solstice, which means a couple of things for me:
1) Since my precious little Baby Saffron was born on the 21st of March and thus the spring solstice, she turned 6 months old today. Where does the time go?
2) I really have to put up some of the "summer" posts I still have in my drafts since they're not really relevant anymore. It's time to start making heavier fare to pat the tummy and the spirit against the cooler weather.
So, you get to see our visit to the zoo (though you wouldn't have known it was summer with the weather we had at the zoo that day) and these mango and passion fruit verrines which come from the leftover ingredients of the mango macarons.

To be perfectly honest, I hate the zoo. I just hate to see these poor animals in captivity. But we didn't go to the zoo for our own pleasure since A. hates the zoo even more than I do, we went because Baby Saffron is simply enthralled with animals right now and does the funniest acrobatics just to try and reach the dogs with her fingertips, so we thought she'd enjoy seeing all these other strange and wonderful-looking animals.
Unfortunately, the day was gray and drab, and while she loves seeing the dogs at close quarters, most of the animals were too far away in their pens to generate much more than mild interest on her part. Plus, there were so many people it was often difficult to get in a position where she could see something in the throng, which prompts me to say that the most obnoxious animals at the zoo were clearly the humans. She was fascinated by the hyenas, but I'm pretty sure that was because they looked like dogs to her.

We spent some time looking at the flamingos and I caught one of them in a ballerina stretch above, so effortlessly graceful. The ocelots were staring at the passage from their lair to their outer pen and we figured it was probably close to meal time. While it is necessary I suppose, particularly given some peoples' foolishness, I did hate taking pictures of the ocelots and the tigers through thick sheets of glass. 
The verrines are composed of a layer of the filling I made for the macarons, a layer of honey mango puree, a layer of whipped cream, and a topping of fresh passion fruit. They were actually even more refreshing than I expected them to be.

While I do hate the zoo, I have to admit that generally speaking, most of the enclosures were much better and larger than at any other zoo I've seen. I still think it's a shame to "cage" the animals in this way and put them in environments that are nothing like their natural ones -I mean, it's London, so all those poor animals that are used to tropical weather must be freezing, I know I am- but as my sister pointed out, in some cases it may be better to be in a pen than staring down the end of a poacher's gun barrel. And it enables us and other parents like us to take their wee ones to see some beautiful animals without taking them on a trek across the globe.

For more filling (which I made up as I was going along so feel free to try your own version) than you can possibly put in mango macarons and thus end up making Mango-Passion Fruit verrines:

- 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 (save the seeds with a little juice for the top layer of the verrine) and some of the mango puree so that the mixture is not too thin and will stiffen in the fridge.
- Then you simply put some of that mixture on the bottom of your glass.
- Top with a layer of the leftover mango puree.
- Top with a layer of whipped cream (preferably freshly whipped cream and not stuff from the can so that you can sweeten it as you wish and not as the manufacturer wishes).
- Top that with the reserved passion fruit seeds and juice. Cover and refrigerate so that it is cool and refreshing when you wish to enjoy it.

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...