Pistachio macarons & Lavender macarons

Busy weekend up ahead so I thought I'd get the macaronage out of the way tonight! Chopped some fresh roasted pistachios to go on top of the pistachio ones, a pity the lavender species in my garden is not flowering yet so no lavender petals to go on top of the lavender ones. Simple white chocolate ganache in the centres. 

Verdict? I still love my lemon curd macaron >_<~ Waiting to spot the next batch of fresh raspberries at the supermarket. I want to try doing a home made ispahan! Rose macaron with fresh raspberry and lychee centre. Heavenly combo! Right....time for a cuppa tea!

Macarons for J's colleagues

Haven't got round to purchasing the sticks and a stand for making cake pops yet, so that will have to wait another week or two. In the mean time, J had told his colleagues he'll bring some macarons in one day, so I decided no time like the present! Made my two favourite flavors, raspberry and lemon :)

Plain shells

Making the meringue

Couldn't be happier, two great lots of shells with no dramas!

Raspberry ganache filling

Raspberry powder decorating

Lemon curd filling

Passionfruit powder decorating

And there we have it! 60 macarons in 2 hours. Wouldn't do it for money thou! It's a labour of love :) x

Chocolate Cupcakes & Raspberry Macarons

Today's adventures consisted of chocolate cupcakes and raspberry macarons!


I made the macarons first. I wanted to experiment with a different way to get the raspberry flavor, so far I've tried freeze dried raspberry powder in the shells with raspberry jam in the centre (jam by itself is too tart) and freeze dried raspberry powder in the shells with jam & whipped cream in the centre (whipped cream means it can't mature as it has to be eaten fresh).


I decided that the freeze dried powder might be affecting texture of the shell, so today I used it in a more artistic way, sprinkled on plain shells. I tried out this new raspberry flavoring I bought along with powder in some ganache but it doesn't have the intensity and tartness of the jam. The flavoring overpowered the powder too. 

So in conclusion, I think the best raspberry macaron for me to stick to would be plain shells sprinkled with raspberry powder with plain ganache with a teeniest dollop of raspberry jam in the middle! :)  That shall be Team JJ's raspberry macaron combination!

XS, S, M, L, XL lol! :)

The 100% reliable appearance of feeties :)

Very very smooth exterior when no freeze dried raspberry powder is added.

Today's experimental ganache..

 Can you tell my love for raspberry flavor? I now have powder, flavoring and puree forms of raspberry! Not to mention raspberry jam can be made easily.

Might have to work on better sprinkle technique :P

uh oh! Ganache a bit on the flowy side. Hope it doesn't sink to the bottom!

J does enjoy the occasional brownie so I relaxed my no-chocolate-in-the-bakery rule and hunted for a chocolate cupcake recipe :) Could not decide whether to decorate with the glazed ganache look, ganache frosting or white buttercream frosting. In the end I decided to go chocolatey all the way and with frosting rather than a glaze when I saw lovely fresh new season NZ strawberries at the shop!

Tried dark and white couverture chocolates today.

 The white couverture chocolate used in the macaron ganache today was much less sweeter than the Cadbury white melts I had been previously using. However the couverture chocolate is a bit cost prohibitive for regular every day baking. The dark ghana is worth it as a cupcake topping thou as you can savor the fine taste!

Tried a heaped ice cream scoop and a flat ice cream scoop for quantities.

Ready!

Travel ready!

Next project, little ducky cake pops like Bakerella's! Have my yellow candy melts ready but no idea where to obtain a styrofoam block from...any clues??

Dare I say it....macarons?

Okay! This is macaron practise done for now. Will try something different next weekend like 'Japanese Cheesecake'. The ones that you get from the local asian bakeries with the light fluffy spongy texture, nothing like a 'proper' / 'real' cheesecake.

Raspberry Macaron with jam filling

 Raspberry ones are a bit wonky because I was trying the batches at different oven temps. 140 (20mins)-160 (13mins) degree celsius. I find the lower temp is better for the less crunchy exterior, wetter interior texture I like.

Batch of shells :)

And we are macaron-ed out for now!

More Macarons~

Did a batch sometime last week, plain shells with lemon curd and ganache filling...
still on baking hiatus so most likely nothing out of the oven this weekend, maybe a small tray of macarons if I feel up to it :)

Raspberry Macarons with Seedless Raspberry Jam & Freshly Whipped Cream!

Decided to give Guillaume's strange french method recipe another go last night. Strange because he doesn't incorporate sugar into the whites at all. Doesn't that make it very unstable? Since the italian method is supposed to be stable because it binds the sugar with the whites... Food chemistry... let's not go there!


I didn't age my whites... Big NO NO for french method. Sounding like a recipe for disaster yet? hehe! 


So here is my over coloured whipped egg whites...

Pretty rose colour

Macaronage

French method  plus Silpat I find always results in wetter feet, but fret not! Nothing a 2 minute "blast freeze" won't fix say the pros! Obviously I don't have a commercial blast freezer so I used the fast freeze option on the freezer. Give it a go if you get sticky feet, it'll come right off.

Silpat lower, Parchment further away - again not much difference in feet

Made some seedless raspberry jam. Much more enjoyable to eat without seeds!

Sieving out the seeds

Filled them with freshly whipped cream and jam. Unconventional filling because it's too moist~ Eat straight away (french shells don't need maturing imho) or store in the freezer so that the cream doesn't turn the shells to mush :)

I won't be using this recipe again as I find it results in a rather coarse exterior. Guillaume uses commercial almond meal so perhaps his grain is much smoother and it works for him. 

Was contemplating blogging straight away...

The photo just above reminded me of my favourite brand Q Pot. Such a pity I didn't manage to find a store during my flying (3 short days) trip to Tokyo. I hope they still have this design when I next visit!

Q Pot!

Speaking of Q Pot, when I saw Laduree's latest strawberry cupcake design last week, I thought it looked inspired by Q Pot's design!

Laduree Strawberry Cupcake- the swirl, the strawberry and sparkly accent 

Q Pot cream ring :)

With JJ's birthday this Wednesday (just baking a simple lemon cake), my birthday this Thursday and our anniversary as well, parties and dining out are in order so I think I'll take a well deserved hiatus from baking!!!


Ciao bella!~

Saturday Baking Frenzy

Made three types of goodies today! Let's do reverse order for this post!~ Instead of my usual preliminaries-utensils- step by step pics-finished product, would be too lengthy a post.

JJ requested a snowman macaron and here is what I came up with!

Meet Mr Snowman!

Was easy to achieve one piece for this shape~ Pity I didn't have pretzel sticks for arms :(

Vanilla Macarons with Vanilla Bean Ganache

Macaron stack

As you may have noticed, I gave the italian meringue method a whirl this week. This is the more commercially viable method and the method recommended for macaron newbs because it is 'fail proof'. Compared to the french method, italian gives a smoother slightly glossy finish and with a whiter colour is better for coloring. On the downside, it's shell and texture is less delicate and too sugary for me personally. However, prettier for a gift especially to non-macaronites!~ Maybe I should read up on the swiss meringue method as well! Would be interesting to see and taste the difference :)

I wanted to compare Silpat to parchment paper...

Parchment on left vs Silpat

Underneath- Parchment on left vs Silpat

I've seen pictures online that show Silpats usually have a wetter foot but was not the case this time. I will try again when I use the french method to see if the difference is more pronounced.

Macaringues! Team JJ trialed a macaron- meringue hybrid 

Tastes like macarons but with meringue texture~ They strangely even developed feet :O

Finally made the Lemon Meringue Pie!

LMP!

Some shopping after work on Friday, technically not baking related but inspired by the KA stand mixer!

Got the blender~ (and Salter digital scales & candy thermometer that facilitated the macarons above!)

Home made ice cream coming right up!

And.....the freebie that made my day! Thanks Linda and Mr-Nice-Sorry-I-don't-know-your-name!

Got given this hush-hush loyal customer incentive!

Gotta love free stuff!

And that's all for this weekend! Need for foot massage from standing in the kitchen that long!