Love your macarons
Delicious treat but really
It’s a foot fetish.
Haiku in comments @ Leave Room For Dessert
It’s time for Mac Attack 5 at our other blog Mac Tweets, and for me the roller coaster ride was on once again. It’s time to find those evasive feet and this time the feet fairy abandoned me good and propah! I’ve had a maniacal time dealing with the lows of macaron-mania, and I have to say it’s not been easy… yet I battled on. I’ve experimented with oven temperatures, double baking sheets, nut meal, almond meal, different parchment paper, varied piping bags …
Spring is the most inspirational season of them all. For the Mac Attack 5 this time, Jamie and I let the shout out for a SPRING FLING! I had so many ideas, but sadly used up all the little pansies I giggled and pressed a while ago. The gardner would give the plants weird looks, wondering where all the little flowers were disappearing. I pressed and thought how wonderful my Spring inspired macs would look. It was not to be! I even oven dried strawberry slices and ground them up to make powder for pink macarons … but no feet found!!
Trying to find my ‘feet’ became second nature to me, and part of my daily routine. Earlier, once the kids left for school, I would settle down to read the day’s newspaper. Times are a-changing! Now the minute they get out of the door for school, I hit the kitchen – sugar / nut meal / egg white / granulated sugar , CHECK …. and here we go again. Eggs aging on the counter is a common sight; no one even bothers batting an eyelid at them. Day after day this Mac Attack, I’ve tried recipes from Ottolenghi, Lebovitz, Pierre Hermes, Tartlette … you name them, I’ve tried them all. No luck this time.
Time was running out, and thanks to La du Jour I got a much needed time extension. Every year on March 20, the world celebrates Macaron Day. According to the site Relais Desserts, Le Jour du Macaron is the day when each one of us can succumb to the delights and pleasure of this lightly domed delicacy, crispy on the outside with a tender, moist center in a dazzling array of colors! I was back to the kitchen, thinking big on all the tips I gathered on Twitter last night. My twin sistah Jamie offered precious advice; add more nut meal if the batter seems a little flowy. Do it with Ottolenghi screams Meeta who has perfected the art of macaronia! Ken from Hungry Rabbit NYC told me what worked for him… he rests the macronage for a bit in the fridge. 162C is what works for him… sigh… why does nothing work for me this time?
And then while I wrote my mac-saga, I piped out yet another tray of macarons. This time, a recipe I followed from Ellin’s beautiful blog Almost Bourdain to a Martha Stewart recipe that usesd ‘fresh’ egg whites! The batter looked a bit thin, so I added more nut meal on Jamie’s advice. I left one tray out to rest, while I bunged the other batter sealed in a piping bag to chill on Ken’s advice. 2 hours later, in went the piped tray and I almost fainted. with joy … FEET GLORIOUS FEET! Not the prettiest, but YES FEET!
All is well in this mac-passionate household once again. I am pretty exhausted but I have found feet, and a new recipe to share….Parisian Macaroons by Martha Stewart. I was so kicked that I for one mad moment contemplated changing my blog name to Meeting Martha Over Macarons… tee hee! With time being short, I decided to sandwich my macarons with some Strawberry Cape Gooseberry Frozen Yogurt with Pink Peppercorn. I saw something similar at my fave food blog Canelle et Vanille that Aran had posted way back on May 2008. They were Pink Peppercorn Macarons with a Strawberry Sorbet Filling. I had always found the idea intriguing, and was happy to have made some more frozen yogurt just recently, so I decided to try it Aran’s way.
I have to say, IMHO, that these were the best macarons that I’ve ever made. I loved what the tangy fruity frozen yogurt did to the macarons. It added in leaps and bounds to the beautiful flavours, the nutty meringues married the burst of fruity flavours in perfect Spring moods! I couldn’t have done it better, and am glad I battled on. The good thing was that you could serve these right out of the freezer! They made for delicious SPRING FLINGS!!
SPRING MACARONS with FRUITY FROZEN YOGURT FILLING
recipe adapted from Martha Stewart
I made half the recipe and got about 15 macarons
Ingredients
Makes about 15 filled macarons
1 1/4 cups plus 1 teaspoon confectioners’ sugar
1 cup finely ground milled nut flour (from Linswood UK)
6 tablespoons fresh egg whites (from about 3 extra-large eggs)
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup granulated sugar
Macaron Filling
1 cup Strawberry-Cape Gooseberry Frozen Yogurt (recipe here)
Method:
Macarons
Preheat the oven to 150C. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
Sift the confectioners sugar and nut meal 2 times. Reserve.
Whip egg whites with salt on medium speed until foamy. Increase speed to high and gradually add granulated sugar. Continue to whip until stiff glossy peaks form.
With a rubber spatula, gently fold in the confectioners’ sugar mixture until completely incorporated.
Pipe 1-inch disks onto prepared baking sheets, leaving 2 inches between cookies. The batter will spread a little. Let stand at room temperature until dry, and a soft skin forms on the tops of the macarons and the shiny surface turns dull, about an hour or more.
Bake, with the door of the oven slightly ajar, until the surface of the macarons is completely dry, about 15 minutes. Remove baking sheet to a wire rack and let the macarons cool completely on the baking sheet. Gently peel off the parchment. Their tops are easily crushed, so take care when removing the macarons from the parchment.
Filling:
Soften the Strabwerry-Cape Gooseberry Frozen Yogurt slightly.
Turn macarons so their flat bottoms face up. On half of them, spoon about 1 teaspoon of softened frozen yogurt. Sandwich these with the remaining macaroons, flat-side down, pressing slightly to spread the filling to the edges. Freeze. Serve directly from freezer!
♥ Thank you for stopping by ♥
Do you want to join us making MACARONS?? If you do, you are most welcome to join the challenge. You can find all the information at our dedicated macaron blog MacTweets. The rules for Mac Attack #5 can be found here. You still have until the 15th of March to join us with happy feet, or you can always join us next month.
This post appeared onthe CHICAGO SUN TIMES
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