Pierre Herme Macaron - BOOK FROM FRANCE - 2010 Edition

If you'd like to grab a copy of Pierre Herme's Macaron masterpiece head over to Ebay as there are a few copies available including one that I'm selling  but be quick because they won't last!


UPDATE - Sorry this has now ended and was snapped up rather fast.  Thanks to the special person who won it.  


If you'd like a rare macaron book by Stephane Glacier, however, follow this link.  It's not cheap but would be perfect for a pastry chef or beginner alike.

Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb inspired Macarons

Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb inspired Macarons

It would be rather boring if I simply wrote the signature mark of Viktor & Rolf on my macarons.  Instead, I've put my own slant on the design.  I've made delicate pink macarons to symbolize the colour of the Viktor & Rolf packaging with flesh tone ganache which, when bitten into reveals the magic potion of the flowerbomb that explodes in your mouth! It's somewhat difficult trying to capture all the elements of this gorgeous perfume but I was thrilled to bits when my taste testers commented on the similarity to the perfume.

Dutch Cocoa & Marshmallow Macarons

There is nothing that I love more, on a cold winter's night, than to come inside from the outdoors into the warmth of my home. Snuggling up on the lounge in my jammies, next to my gorgeous giggly girls, sipping thick hot cocoa taking turns to dunk our marshmallows. Thick oozy chocolate all over our lips, dripping down the little girls chin, big smiles and later, lots of cuddles. Excitement buzzing in the air because Easter is just around the corner "I can't wait for the Easter egg hunt" says the eldest gorgeous girl.

Since the Mactweets challenge this month is all about chocolate, I couldn't help but to combine my "Dutch Cocoa & Marshmallow Macarons" with a hint of Easter. My macarons are inspired by the Mactweets challenge and special moments with my gorgeous girls.

I used to love these little fluffy chicks when I was little.

MAKE THE GANACHE 

Use a 2:1 ratio of chocolate to cream i.e. 200g white chocolate and 100g pouring cream (minimum 35% fat) and add a splash of marshmallow essence.

MAKE THE MACARONS:

INGREDIENTS FOR THE DUTCH COCOA TANT POUR TANT (TPT)

312g sifted TPT (140g almond meal with 150g icing sugar & 22g dutch cocoa)

55g egg whites (fresh)

INGREDIENTS FOR THE ITALIAN MERINGUE (IM)

150g caster sugar

37g water

55g egg whites (old egg whites aged 12-24 hours in a bowl on the kitchen bench)

chocolate powdered food colouring

STEP 1. MAKE THE TPT

Mix the Tant Pour Tant (normally equal quantities of icing sugar & almond meal - exception is for this recipe whereby I've added extra cocoa powder) with the fresh egg white until it forms a thick paste, cover with cling wrap and set aside.

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 small 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.

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.

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 dry.  Allow the macaron to return to room temperature prior to serving.

Cappuccino & Crystallised Violet Macarons

When I was a teenager I never liked coffee. My mum was a barista at an exclusive chocolate shop and whenever I went to visit her I'd duck in to make an appearance, perhaps buy a chocolate or two, then would dart for the door as I couldn't stand the smell. How times have changed. Now, like clockwork I buy a cappuccino every morning. In fact, I actually think that I must belong to some exclusive cafe society as I've visited some pretty fantastic cafes all over the world, the most memorable being in Paris, Madrid and Venice. Paris I loved the thick, delicious hot chocolate from Angelina's; Madrid I loved hot chocolate so thick that you could literally stand your spoon straight up in it along with scrumptious churros for breakfast; and, Venice espresso coffee with delicious Venetian pastries. Combining my love of cafes and flowers in the garden I decided to create a cappuccino macaron dusted with crystallised violets. You know it must be pretty good when you have a gorgeous little girl hanging around, who by the way is normally rather blaze about macarons, wanting to taste the ganache and sugared violets.

To make this macaron follow the basic recipe. To make the cappuccino ganache I used a 2:1 ratio of white chocolate to cream and added a splash of cappuccino essence. After piping the ganache, I then sprinkled each one with crushed crystallised violets before assembling them. Here's how they turned out...

And, who ate the enormous crystallised violet displayed in the photo above... the gorgeous little girl!

Basil & Rose Macarons

I love the colour green but for some reason I've never liked green sweets. If I find one in a bag I'd rather give it away than eat it and funnily enough I'm not too fond of green macarons either.  Since I've used shades of pink and mauve with my macarons however, I thought that it was time to use green with my latest creation despite my natural instinct.


After living in London and flying en-route to Australia we decided to take a holiday in Malaysia, staying on the gorgeous island of Langkawi.  I never sleep on flights and feeling tired, hot and bothered I remember how wonderful it was to arrive at the hotel only to be greeted with the most delicious drink.  I was hesitant at first because the glass that I was handed looked like it was full of frog spawn but a quick sniff revealed a wonderful aroma.  The drink turned out to be a concoction of basil seeds and either rose water or rose syrup and after several more the memory of that drink has never left.


Taking Adriano Zumbo's idea of infusing basil into chocolate, I decided to make a  ganache using basil, white chocolate, cream and rose essence to try and simulate the drink that I had tasted.  Although, my macarons are coloured green the drink actually had a beautiful hue of ruby rose.

The macarons turned out really well and the kids loved the ganache but if you have the recipe for this Malaysian drink let me know because I'd love to try and make it.  Can't even remember what it was called and didn't want to include google search results in the event that I got it wrong.  I'm crossing my fingers...


Update: I've since found a Thai cooking site with the recipe ilovethaicooking

Salted Caramel Macarons with Hints of Lavender - Fleur de Sel

These look ordinary before they're filled 

This week has been a bad week and the last thing I felt like doing was taking photo after photo of the macaron process to go with this post. Everything is fine now but it all started last weekend when our washing machine and fridge decided to shut up shop. I'm too busy with work and kids during the week to bother with washing and even though I'm super organised when I make my macarons, I'm a bit more relaxed about everything else and tend to catch up on the weekend. So, imagine my horror when I had a weeks worth of washing to do and stuff going off in the fridge! We don't realize how much we rely on our electric gadgets until they're not working. I remember cruising down the Nile back in 2000 seeing egyptians throwing their washing against rocks, scrubbing them then dipping them back in the water and I thought that if that were me I'd be there for a month of Sundays! So, I do spare a thought for them and think that it could be worse. Finally, I was able to start washing again yesterday and even though the fridge is working now I've still got little confidence that it's going to continue to do so. I absolutely hate laundromats and avoid them like the plague but would have had to have bitten the bullet if the saga continued any longer. Anyway, I've nearly caught up with my washing already and have made some macarons and am now back in my happy place. The fridge will require another visit from the technician but so far so good.

I'm also guessing that with the number of posts that I've done whereby I've included photo after photo instructing how to make macarons the last thing you would want is another post with more of the same. So unless some readers yell really loudly I'm going to scale back a bit and just post some of the end results until I feel inspired to do it again.

To make macarons choose any one of my previous posts and for the salted caramel click here. In addition to the salt I added one teaspoon of finely ground edible French lavender to the caramel and also sprinkled a little bit of lavender onto the piped macaron shells. Next time I wouldn't worry about sprinkling lavender on top of the macarons because some of it fell off after the shells were cooked.

But look much better here