Sunday 20 March 2011

Griottines Macarons


This months Mactweets challenge really had me thinking. Our challenge - Sugar & Spice and everything fruity. I've already experimented with fresh fruit in season so didn't really want to do more of the same yet I wanted to create a macaron that you could eat all year round within the boundaries of our spice and fruit challenge - I also wanted a taste of luxury. Thinking outside the box I decided to shop online. A quick search and click of the finger and voila, I purchased some gorgeous dried griottines.

Griottines are little sour wild morello cherries that are grown in the Balkans but harvested, macerated and processed in the French tradition by Les Grandes Distilleries Peureux. They are crazed by professionals and chefs world-wide and have won recognition in many leading restaurants - perfect!

For this challenge, I decided to macerate my dried griottines in kirsch to rehydrate them, add sugar and spice and everything nice; then package them so I could go to my freezer and make more luxurious griottines macarons at a whim - heaven.

In the griottines theme, I coloured the macarons purple, the ganache red and finished it off with a stroke of bronze lustre dust to represent the stalk.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I had fun creating it.

GRIOTTINES MACARONS
FOR THE TANT POUR TANT (TPT)
300g sifted TPT (150g almond meal with 150g icing sugar)
55g egg whites
 (fresh)

INGREDIENTS FOR THE ITALIAN MERINGUE (IM)
150g caster sugar
37g water
powdered purple food colouring or Wilton gel paste
55g egg whites (old egg whites aged 12-24 hours in a bowl on the kitchen bench)

STEP 1. MAKE THE TPT
Mix the Tant Pour Tant (equal quantities of icing sugar and almond meal) with the fresh egg white until it forms a thick paste, cover with cling wrap and set aside.

I wizzed the almond meal in the food processor before sieving the TPT



STEP 2. MAKE THE IM
Pour your aged egg whites into a Kitchen Aid mixer and insert the whisk attachment.
Bring the caster sugar, water and food colouring to the boil in a saucepan. When the sugar syrup reaches 115°C start whisking your aged egg whites into soft peaks.


As soon as the syrup reaches 118°C slowly pour the syrup into the beaten egg whites in a thin stream. Continue whisking the IM in the Kitchen Aid until it reaches a temperature between 50-55°C.


STEP 3. COMBINE THE TPT & IM
With a spatula, fold one-third of the IM into the TPT and egg white paste and knock out some of the air in the batter. At this stage of the process you can be quite rough when handling.


Gently fold in the rest of the IM into the TPT and combine until you have the right texture (should be glossy and look like cake mixture). Be careful not to over-mix the batter here or it will get too runny and your shells may crack in the oven.



STEP 4. PIPE YOUR MACARON SHELLS
Fill a piping bag with the macaron batter and place some parchment paper over a baking sheet.


Put four small dabs of macaron mix underneath the parchment paper in each corner to secure the paper. Pipe 3.5 - 4cm diameter circles onto the parchment paper, tap the tray on the work surface to remove air bubbles and leave to dry for about 15-20 minutes to form a crust and are dry to touch.



STEP 5. COOK YOUR MACARON SHELLS
Cook the macaron for 17 mins at 150°C (fan forced oven). To release steam, leave the oven door open slightly. If this doesn't work for you, keep experimenting until you find the right temperature as every oven is different. Once cooked, remove from the baking sheet and leave to cool on the parchment paper over a wire rack. I have a new commercial style oven which is very powerful so I have to reduce the temperature by another 20°C and cook my shells for 19 minutes.

STEP 6. ASSEMBLE YOUR MACARON
Remove the shells from the parchment paper and pair like sizes together. Pipe a decent blob of ganache onto the shell, then place the lid on top and twist slightly so that the ganache flows out towards the edge of the macaron. When piping the ganache onto the shell always leave a small rim.


A stroke of bronze lustre dust on each macaron to represent a cherry stalk

STEP 7. STORE YOUR MACARON
Store your macaron in the fridge for 24 hours prior to eating so that the humidity helps the ganache to soak into the shell and allow the flavours to develop. Try not to eat your macaron the day they are made as they are too dry. Allow the macaron to return to room temperature prior to serving. The recipe for my Griottines ganache appears in my previous post.


Exquisite - for a super sour cherry experience add more paste.

16 comments:

  1. Waauw What special. That is profesional cookwork. And the colours are so beautiful like colours of wool. Thank you for visiting my blog and seeing my passion for making scarfs of luxery yarn. www.gebreidesjaals.blogspot.com
    Mieke from the neherlands

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  2. Love love love the flavours and your creativity... genius! I tried a batch of Italian macarons this month, but in my general panic, forgot the granulated sugar. Wasted batch, but am already inspired to try again! These are gorgeous! Thank you for sharing your expertise, and bringing such beauty to MacTweets!

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  3. Deeba thank you so very much for your kind words. This is my 3rd attempt with Mactweets and I've loved every minute of it. A big thank you to both you & Jaime for creating such wonderful challenges. I'm sorry to hear that you forgot the sugar in your Italian macarons but I'm sure you'll have better luck next time. If I can provide any advice whatsoever please let me know. If I were to make the French meringue method I'd need your help as my previous attempts have all failed! Best of Luck Karen.

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  4. WOW! These look heavenly! I am in absolute awe of your macarons!

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  5. Thanks Katie, I think your cakes and macarons on your site http://elliebellycakes.webs.com are pretty awesome too. I especially love the hot pink Fancy Nancy cake - yum.

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  6. Anonymous3/22/2011

    These are just gorgeous, the color, the flavor everything. Wow.

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  7. Hi LM2010,

    Just wondering if you ever had to make your own icing sugar?

    I just tasted some store bought macarons in Kuala Lumpur, the chocolate one was nice but the rest... some rather artificial taste....

    So I am so in awe of your efforts in making the various fillings here at your blog; all from scratch!

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  8. H Emily, I use pure icing sugar (without cornflour). I've not made my own but apparently you can put granulated white sugar into a food processor and blend it until you have a fine powder. The only potential problem is that you may not get it quite as fine as pure icing sugar commercially available from a supermarket. I've not lived in KL but have lived in Hong Kong and I used to buy my icing sugar from places like Wellcome, Park n Shop, Olivers & Great. I'm sure you'd be able to get it from the Western supermarkets in KL but it might be a bit expensive. As macarons are so finicky I'd save myself the trouble and would try and buy some. Also, think about ordering it online instead of racing around KL to find it. Not sure about you but I could never get used to the humidity. I hope this helps. Best Wishes:)

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  9. Hi LM2010,

    We have icing sugar easily available (at the shops); but what if one have a macaron baking frenzy but ran out of?!!!!!??? LOL!

    So, I guess better make sure to stock up on store-bought icing sugar then!

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  10. I reckon stocking up sounds pretty good, that's what I do. Cross my fingers I haven't made a batch where I've run out of something... phew. Can't wait to see how you go, let me know when you've got your post up:)

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  11. Probably friday nite baking; hopefully can bring some to present to my DD's future MIL this sunday!

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  12. Wow! What a luxurious sounding macaron. I've used morello cherries in syrup before but never heard of griottines. They do sound very special. Love the streak of lustre dust, very fancy.

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  13. Gorgeous! The bronze lustre dust looks fabulous. Griottines sound very unusual.

    Also - the sheets you use to pipe perfect ones look so useful - did you make them yourself?

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  14. Hi Shaz & Poires au Chocolat - thank you for leaving comments it makes my day! Love your blogs:)

    I'm not into reinventing the wheel and found a macaron template here:
    http://tandysinclair.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/macaron-template.pdf

    Happy baking!

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  15. LadyMacaron20ten, how do you keep your colours so vibrant? Mine look great when I pipe them but fade terribly when I cook them? Any help would be appreciated

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  16. Hi Laura, I use either Wilton gel paste or powdered food colouring, which you can order online. I never measure amounts and always experiment with colours which makes it even more fun:)

    Check out:
    http://www.cakesaroundtown.com.au/catalog/food-colour-powders-c-29_302.html?osCsid=58b537da8ae922e1ba051b144f822434

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Little macaron kisses for leaving me a comment. I may not reply to each one but I certainly do read them - thank you.