“Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do!”
John Wooden
What’s not to love about the name of this much awaited film that is being released today on Friday the 13th – Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia. Thefilm is a 2006 memoir by American author Elizabeth Gilbert. The memoir chronicles the author’s trip around the world after her divorce, and what she discovered during her travels. The film doesn’t seem to have very great reviews, but I love the title. A now clichéd phrase which seems to embody the essentials of life, a set of words I imagine everyone can connect to in their own little way!
What does it have to do with me and my blog? Well, I am no different and seem to have got caught in it’s hype. So, I chose this summer flick to fit the theme for this months MacTweets, a monthly event co-hosted by Jamie and me – Mac Attack #10 – A Summer Flick.
Our call…
Create that perfect macaron inspired by a movie: whether old or new, comedy or drama, black & white or in glorious Technicolor, let that movie inspire, fire up the ideas and pull you into an imaginary world of cameras, lights, costumes and scenery. You are the screenwriter, the director, the cast and crew… now to produce an award winning cinematographic macaron!
My mind was set on this film, that was partly shot in India. The title Eat, Pray, Love reflected everything I felt about macarons, maybe not in that order though, so seemed the natural choice! I L♥VE macarons, it’s probably one of the only things I would PRAY for feet to appear, and EAT? Oh YUM YUM, these little creatures make for absolutely delightful mouthfuls! Pure indulgence and a joy to feast on, feet or no feet! Well, I dressed them up in costumes!!
So my story this month is … Look Mom, NO FEET!! Call me cynical, call me persevering, call me silly, obsessed or whatever, but I continue to try month after month, and am so prepared for the lack of feet that it doesn’t seem to bother me anymore. The way I’m going, I’ll probably faint with joy if feet showed up in the near future. That’s not to say I don’t brainstorm my faults. I do, I do! I read every written word I find about macarons, I analyse, I take the help of mac masters, I get help from friends like Bina who send me egg white powder, I play around with oven temperatures, I try different recipes … Oh well, to cut a long story short, maybe they just don’t want to grow feet in the humid UGH temperatures of North India as yet. But since I am a co host, I can’t say I didn’t try {several timesactually}!
So here we are. My EAT, PRAY, L♥VE macarons for MacTweets this month, feetless but certainly delicious. They got their nice deep brown colour from Valrhona cocoa that Shayma recently sent to me as a gift. Using this fabulous cocoa, paired with David Lebovitzs recipe, I was pretty convinced that this time I would win my battle with feet! After all, David’s Chocolate Macaron recipe had found me feet in the past.Not this time though. All such convictions were Gone with the Wind within 5 minutes of baking, and I was staring at The Good, the Bad and the Ugly! Talk about themes … teehee, I did love the call we sent out this month because I knew I would find so many perfect fits!
Eat, Pray, Love didn’t help me find feet, but did give me some darned delicious macs that were cute like buttons. Also gave me a chance to dress ’em macarons up in some royal icing. The feetless characters made for very yummy mouthfuls, sandwiched with a milk cum dark chocolate ganache. I added some light olive oil to the ganache once it was made as I had eyeballed the cream and it was slightly less. Olive oil gave the ganache this super shine, wonderful texture and taste. It’s always a fun journey trying to find feet, and to there’s always something new waiting to be discovered.
Do you want to join Jamie and me making MACARONS?? If you do, you are most welcome to join the ‘Attack’. You can find all the information at our dedicated macaron blogMacTweets. The rules for can be foundhere. You can always join us next month. Just drop us a mail or tweet.
The ganache is also similar to the recipe here, the only difference being that I used a combination of milk and dark chocolate, and added 1 tbsp of light olive oil after it was made, and whisked it well to incorporate the oil.
Yes, still summer here, with the rains that came and went, leaving us in a puddle of hot and humid misery. Not the perfect weather for macs, but then again, it was the finding my feet time of the month. Needless to say, they proved elusive again. The theme Jamie and I picked at MacTweets was ‘SING, SING A SONG‘, asking you to cook up something special, something toe-tapping, sing-along good! Sing I did, and the numbers being belted out in my mind were wide ranging. Primary of course the theme song from Friends, “I’ll Be There For You” which I was going to dedicate my macs to… had they found feet.
It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear When it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month, or even your year But … I’ll be there for you (when the rain starts to pour) I’ll be there for you (like I’ve been there before) I’ll be there for you (because you’re there for me too)
To Bina who mailed me egg white powder from the States, to Ednah {Janet} who posted the cutest friends card for me, Johnny Depp and all, {a joke we share on twitter at the laundry club}, to Jamie who is the spirit behind my macs, to Ken who inspired the yellow, to Mardi my partner in humid conditions failed macs, to Barbara who’s become a mac-pro …
… and to all the gang at MacTweets for the inspired ‘feet‘ month after month! Thanks for joining Jamie and me at the ‘attack‘!
Songs have always been part of my life. The medley that the juke box plays in my head these days includes Waka Waka, Don’t Cry For Me Argentina, Wind Beneath My Wings, Walk of Life, Hey Soul Sister, The Day I Died, Fast Cars, Hey There Delilah. Then Jamie mentioned Cat Stevens and Leonard Cohen; she had me nodding. Add to that Dire Straits, Eagles, Van Morrison, Beegees, Barbara Streisand, Eric Clapton … the list is endless, like failed feet sagas! So well, in my little world, I had many ugly feetless macarons, and one kind of respectable ‘foot’, but they were all delicious. So here, like Cinderellas glass slipper, is my vanilla macaron with a white chocolate ganache cushioned on this Mango Vanilla Bavarian Cream Cake that I made for my Dad’s birthday. The idea was to have a whole bunch of them adorning the cake. Que sera sera, whatever will be, will be …
My Dad is as fruit obsessed as I am, though the choice of fruit differs. Summer means only mangoes for him, and though he doesn’t enjoy eating them, he is obsessed with buying kilos of them every other day. I know if the phone rings in the morning, it’s him on the other end, asking me to drive by and collect a bag of mangoes! I am mad about peaches and cherries, and it now appears that I inherited the fruit obsession from him!
So he called the other day, excitedly to tell me that a new local variety of mango, ‘langda’, that hit the market, and he had bought me some! I don’t even bother buying them now because he has a keen eye for the well ripened good varieties, and always delivers the best! Since it was his birthday in 2 days, and me being the official cake baker at home, I knew just what I wanted to bake! – A Bavarian Cream Cake with mangoes, inspired by this Raspberry Rose Vanilla Bavarian Cream Cake I had seen ages ago on Tartlette.
Baking the sponge is a cake walk {unlike making macs, sigh}, because there’s very little to the recipe. Use your favourite light sponge recipe, or use this one which I used for making ladies fingers in this Tiramisu here. I was going to make the cake in a jelly roll pan, and then decided to pipe it out since the piping bag for a macaron attempt was lying right there. The secret to a good sponge is to beat it well, and then try and retain as much beaten air as possible while folding in the flour. The measures for a 3egg sponge are in my head as I use the same recipe for making a Swiss roll often … 3 eggs, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup flour!
The Bavarian cream is a little time consuming, but I think that’s because I don’t make it often enough. I’ve just made it twice in the past – in this Peaches and Cream Cake and this Strawberry Bavarian Cream Cake. One vanilla bean would do fine in there to dispel off any eggy smells in the pastry cream, but I used 2 because I wanted a deeper vanilla flavour. Also, I have enough vanilla beans on hand,and love using them! I used low fat cream because we don’t get heavy cream here.I halved Helen’s recipe for the Bavarian cream, and used a combination of skimmed milk and low fat cream. You can make this cake with peaches, strawberries or raspberries too. Mango is in season now, so here we are…
3 large eggs separated 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup plain flour pinch salt 1 tsp vanilla extract 1 sachet vanilla sugar
Method:
Whip the yolks with 1/4 cup sugar till pale and creamy. Add the vanilla extract and beat again.
Sift the flour over the beaten yolks and leave.
wash the beaters clean, whip the whites with the salt to soft peaks, add sugar and whip to a stiff meringue.
Fold the whites into the yolks and flour in 3 goes. Do this gently so as not to lose volume. Divide it into half and bake in 2 parchment paper lined 8″ shallow baking tins, or pipe into 2 9″ circles drawn on parchment paper. The bases will be very thin. Sprinkle with vanilla sugar
Bake for 12-15 minutes till golden brown and spongy.
Peel off paper, and cool completely on racks.
For the Vanilla Bavarian Cream 4 egg yolks 3/4 cup sugar 1/2 cup milk 2 vanilla beans {One bean will do too. I wanted a DEEP vanilla flavour} 1 1/4 tablespoons powdered gelatin, sprinkled over 3 tbsps water {Can reduce to 1 tbsp in cool weather} 600ml low fat cream {25% fat}
Method:
In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until very pale.
In the meantime, in a large saucepan set over medium heat, bring the milk, 200ml cream and the vanilla bean {split open and scraped over the milk} to a boil. Slowly pour the milk over the yolks, whisking constantly. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan over medium low heat and cook until the cream coats the back of a spoon {as if making creme anglaise}.
Remove the vanilla bean. Add the softened gelatin and stir until melted completely into the cream. Let cool to room temperature, or cool over an ice bath, stirring from time to time, till it just begins to set. Whip the cream to soft peaks and fold it into the cooled cream base. Use immediately.
Lime Syrup:
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
Juice of 1 lime Method: Put all ingredients in pan over medium heat and stir till melted. Remove and cool.
To Assemble:
Trim both the sponges to an 8″ diameter {The idea isbasically to fit snugly into the dessert ring, or Spring-form tin ring that you plan to use. It has to hold the Bavarian cream in place till it sets, else it will ooze out.}
Place the dessert ring on a serving platter, add one sponge base and brush with lime syrup. Top with the cooled Bavarian cream. Add the diced mango pieces uniformly over the Bavarian, and top with the second layer of sponge, keeping the vanilla sugar side facing up. Press down gently, cover the ring with cling-wrap, and chill for 6-8 hours, or better overnight.
