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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...

A Visit to the Borough Market

So the obvious question might be: Why would I include a picture of sweet limes below, as the first picture in this post, if I didn't get sweet limes at the Borough Market? Well, there's no real logic to it, these limes are yellow, which is unusual as you know because it means they were allowed to ripen, and they came straight from Pakistan to London in someone's suitcase as a token of affection from the people who work on our farm there.
Sweet lime and Jasmine trees were planted all over the backyard of our house in Lahore by A.'s grandfather and give off the most intoxicating mingling aroma when they are both in bloom in the summer. A. likes to bite into them when they are ripe and suck out the sweet juice but we haven't been there in a while, so someone was kind enough to think of him and bring some back.
I still find yellow limes unusual to look at, so you get to see a picture of them.

But on to the meat of the matter, so to speak: The Borough Market in the heart of London, very close to the Tower and London Bridge. It's huge, both indoor and outdoor, and chock full of most anything you can eat. We don't get there often enough I'm sad to say, and unfortunately we most often remember to go on Saturdays, which are by far the worst day to go, but when it's open only between Thursday to Saturday, there isn't much latitude for our addled parents-of-an-infant brains.
There you can find smoked shrimp pita sandwiches which I had never had before and which are quite good, I must say, though I was skeptic at first.

Various vegetable and fruit-sellers have more or less exciting wares, though my favorite stand has to be the one selling the dried fruits and nuts in the top left-hand picture below. We tasted some freshly-pressed juice combinations, some of which worked, others less so. We got lost in some corners and back-tracked through alleys leading us out when we were trying to go in. I exchanged amused glances with other camera-laden visitors, clearly food-bloggers. The best part was watching Baby Saffron take great interest in all the hubbub and products. Her ceaseless curiosity was only increased by the array of colors, the smells and the sounds before her.

The most fascinating part of the outing came when A. took her into one of the better fishmonger's stall where he spotted some beautiful razor clams. A. loves nothing if not good seafood and it was fun to not only watch him explain everything to her and see the wonder in her eyes as she surveyed all these odd-looking shapes below, but to see the delight the fishmonger took at her ready smile and undivided attention toward the fish. It doesn't hurt that she's pretty cute too...

I love farmers' markets, especially when they are large like this one, as you are always bound to discover something else you'd forgotten was in season or perhaps had never seen or tasted before. And one of my favorite things is the always-present stall with an unholy quantity of eggs, enough for you to bake every egg-containing recipe you might have at your disposal or perhaps make an omelet for a regiment. I don't know about anyone else, but that many eggs always makes me want to take a whole flat of them home and bake all day long (and I've done exactly that before in France).

And I haven't even mentioned such landmarks as Neal's Yard Dairy there, but just the fruits and vegetables will keep you occupied for quite a while. If you love food, you must definitely stop there while you are in London, provided it's between a Thursday and a Saturday of course (interesting market-visiting babies sold separately).

An Untraditional D(o)B(os) Torte

Before I say anything else, I have to give a shout out to two ladies. One is my good friend and partner in crime, as you'll see, Meeta K. of What's For Lunch Honey? and the other is the woman who regularly saves the day, the sweetest Frenchie (both literally and figuratively) on the Eastern seaboard, Helene of Tartelette. This challenge would not have seen completion without either one of these two ladies.

So why does my Dobos Torte not look like most of the other Daring Bakers' this month? Well, never one to conform, and sometimes for the worse, I used white chocolate.
We haven't been feeling very chocolatey at all here since it's been quite hot and sometimes very humid (for London that is, we're wimps we know), so I thought I'd try this Dobos Torte with a fruity spin. I halved the recipe to make two mini-cakes and used white chocolate, mascarpone and lemon for the frosting and fresh blueberries between the layers of sponge. If you've visited me before you know I have a fetish for this combination, and it seemed like if I was going to try something different than the stated recipe for yet another layer cake, I might as well be able to compare it to a previous DB challenge: Dorie Greenspan's perfect party cake.

I didn't take pictures of the process and, really, you should thank me for that because it wasn't pretty. Oh the sponge went ok enough, as I said to Meeta on twitter I didn't have time to bake each layer for one big cake, particularly with Baby Saffron, but I did have time to use a cookie cutter! She and I baked the sponges separately and then met up over chat to do the rest of the cake. We'd done this once before for the Daring Bakers' 2007 Yule Log, and just like last time, the conversation was a hoot and really helped to ease the process. Between her and her chocolate quark mousse for Soeren's birthday cake (7 years old!) and me with my lemon mascarpone mousse because we both didn't really want to use butter for the buttercream, exclamations of all colors flew and at one point she proposed, and I agreed, that we needed a stiff drink, so dry martinis with extra olives were poured and enjoyed, virtually that is.
My lemon mascarpone mousse didn't set properly which is when I resorted to a twitter plea for help from Tartelette and, as always, she came to the rescue. She is, as I have been quite fond of saying since I first saw her blog in early 2007, a Baking Fairy. If you haven't seen her blog which just got a beautiful new makeover, get thee over there now!
As for Meeta, she is a dear friend, a rockin' blogger with a beautiful blog, and an awesome person all around and I am better for her friendship. We have to do this more often!

The cake turned out to be meh taste-wise (and yes that is about as elaborate and articulate as I am going to be about that) so I think it's probably the kind of cake for which you want to actually use dark chocolate and stick to the recipe. And Dorie, well, she's keeping my heart for now.
Oh one more thing: About the caramel layer, I'm not sure I get the purpose of it other than as decorative, but I actually didn't make it with lemon juice as prescribed in the recipe as it seemed a bit odd to me to mix caramel and lemon, and it turned out just fine by adding a little bit of butter to enable it to pour out onto the sponge layer before it set.

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague. You can find the recipe on our hostesses' blogs.

Old Hobbies and Upside Down Banana Cake

La Seine at the Pont-Neuf, Paris

Sometimes, when you've stopped an activity for a while, it's easy to forget that a long time ago you may have been good at it.

Back right after college, I was a mad photographer, taking pictures of everything all the time. Digital SLRs weren't around back then, at least not in any sense I could afford, and I so enjoyed shooting film, feeling that I was learning immeasurably with every roll, that it wouldn't really have mattered if I could have afforded a dSLR anyway. Then, oh the irony, I went to graduate film school and never had a minute to shoot still photographs unless it was for an assignment. Later, working 14 to sometimes 16 hour days, there was only just time to eat and sleep.

In due course, everyone moved from film to digital and I, still skeptical and attached to the Minolta I'd had since I was 12, started very slowly with a little Canon Elf that I purchased to take on a solo trip to New Zealand. That was a complete blast and I loved this little foray I was making into digital photography (in fact, if you go back on this blog, all the pictures were taken with that Canon Elf for over a year).
Then life happened and I completely forgot about photography for a while. Good and mostly bad things overshadowed the need for hobbies, until just recently.

The biggest catalyst was probably Baby Saffron. I take pictures of her all the time because I know she's changing every day and I don't always notice since she and I are never truly apart.

When she's older, I want her to be able to see herself as we see her now. I want her to have a treasure trove of pictures to choose from, if she wants to, for any occasion as an adult. If she has children I want them to see pictures of her as a baby and child. And, let's face it, she's just adorable, so it doesn't hurt to look at pictures of her anyway.
I know that back then I had an eye for it, and looking at the pictures I take now, I realize it will take some time to get that back. I still think I take better pictures with film, that somehow the camera and I get along better in the analog format, but I'm sure that with a lot of practice I can acquire my eye back on the digital format. It will be fun trying anyway. And I think this blog is going to become a little less about food and a little more about a lot of other things, primarily photography. I hope you'll stay with me as I go on this little adventure. Right now I'm just having fun digging through my old photographs. Very few of my film photographs have been scanned like the black and white pictures above and below, but I plan on rectifying that when I have the time to go through old boxes of negative and scan the ones I don't want to forget.

St. Patrick's Day, New York

As with the lemon bars, what does that have to do with upside down caramelized banana cake? Well, actually I saw a picture of this cake somewhere and had to follow the link because 1) I love bananas and 2) it looked so intriguing. When I read the post about it over at The Wicked Noodle, and realized we were talking about bananas + caramel, I had to try it. Besides, it was time to do something different from yet another banana bread recipe.

Apparently this is a popular cake in Brazil and can be found in every bakery there. You'll notice in the pictures that the crumb is a bit dense, that's just the fault of yours truly overbeating the egg whites. It tasted wonderful anyway, the most delightful thing about it being that as the caramel is truly just caramelized sugar (there's hardly any butter in this cake), the bananas release juices as they cook which blend with the caramel below them, creating little pools of banana-flavored soft caramel between the slices of fruit. I had a little difficulty with the caramel as I've never made any in a thin-bottom pan before, so it was interesting to say the least.

While I love the look and flavor of this cake, I will say that if I want a cake with a really strong banana flavor I'd stick to a banana-bread type of recipe because this, as the look and name indicate, is another cake with caramelized fruit on top. If you love bananas and want a cake that will start a conversation, particularly if you're not in Brazil, this is the cake for you.
And by the way, if you haven't been to Paula Cinini's blog The Cookie Shop yet, run! don't walk, over there right now.


Banana Upside Down Cake
adapted from Paula Cinini at The Cookie Shop as posted on The Wicked Noodle

For a 10" or 26cm circular pan
For the caramel banana layer:
- 1 1/2 cup (170g) sugar
- 4-5 ripe bananas (must be ripe or they will become hard)

For the cake:
- 2 cups (240g) all purpose flour
- 1 cup (90g) cornstarch
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 4 large eggs, divided, at room temperature for best results
- 4 tbsp (50g) unsalted butter
- 1.5 cups (150g) sugar
- 1 cup (200ml) whole milk

For the banana layer:
- Put the sugar in the pan you will be baking the cake in and heat it on medium heat to make a dry caramel (no water). Once it's fluid and light amber in color, with a wooden spoon, as best you can try to distribute the caramel evenly all over the pan (bottom and sides sides). Keep in mind that the caramel will set quickly so you may not be able to coat everything, don't worry about it. Set aside.
- For the cake to look like the pictures here or at the Wicked Noodle, split the bananas lengthwise and distribute them with the cut side down, over the caramel. Alternatively, you could cut the bananas in thick slices and pack them over the caramel. Either way, try to place them as close to the pan sides as you can (they will shrink a bit) as this may make taking the cake out easier afterward.

For the cake:
- Heat the oven to 350° F (180°C).
- In a bowl, sift the dry ingredients (flour, cornstarch and baking powder). Set aside.
- In a dry, clean bowl, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until soft peaks form. Set aside.
- Beat the butter, sugar and egg yolks until very light and creamy. This is most easily done with an electric mixer, stand or hand.
- Use the dry/wet method, adding the flour mixture in thirds, alternating with the milk. Beat only just until the flour is incorporated.
- Fold the beaten egg whites into the batter carefully by hand, preferably with a spatula.
- Pour the batter over the banana layer, distributing evenly.
- Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, until golden and a toothpick inserted in the
center of the cake comes out clean.
- Let the cake rest for a bit so that it cools slightly and the caramel sets to some extent, but try to unmold it while it's still warm for ease.