Lemon-Basil Macarons

Posted in Macarons by radhikasethi

Macarons au Citron Jaune et Basilic as the French would call it. 🙂

I have found myself cooking with lemon a lot last few weeks. I think the famous proverb, modified, would suit me best “A lemon a day keeps the doctor away”. 😉 So when I had some lemon basil cream leftover from my Lemon Basil Cheesecake I thought they would be ideal to fill up some macarons.

Lemon Basil Macarons

The lemon basil cream is so versatile and can be used in different desserts, for example, to fill eclairs or profiteroles, to fill up tarts, as a filling for a layered cake. Sky is the limit I’d say. 🙂

I enjoyed making these and friends enjoyed eating these even more. 🙂

Makes 24-30 depending on the size

Ingredients :

For the pâté à macaron :
93 g icing sugar, sifted
93 g ground almonds
1 medium free-range egg white

For the Italian meringue :
1 medium free-range egg white
1 drop lemon juice or 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
93 g caster sugar
1.5 tbsp water
Yellow Food coloring (optional)

Lemon Basil Cream :
1/2 gelatin sheet (1g)
88 g butter, softened
1 egg
68 g sugar
65 ml lemon juice
5 medium basil leaves

Instructions :

Heat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3 and line two baking trays with baking paper.

Pâté à macaron:
In a large bowl, mix the icing sugar, ground almonds and egg whites to form a paste.

Italian meringue :
Whisk the egg whites and cream of tartar(or lemon juice) in a kitchen mixer on a medium speed.

Reduce the speed on the mixer to its lowest setting and pour the sugar syrup from the sides of the bowl onto the firmly whipped egg whites.
Increase the speed to high and continue to whisk for 1 minute.
Now add the food colouring, I have used golden yellow and brown (4:2) and whisk again until the meringue is coloured uniformly.

Fold the Italian meringue mixture into the pâté à macaron until it reaches the ribbon stage – this is when a spoonful of the mixture poured back into the bowl sits like a ribbon on the surface. Do not over-mix or the macaroon will crack when cooked.

Place the mixture in a piping bag fitted with a 8mm/¼in nozzle.

Pipe on 3cm/1in discs on the baking trays, at least 2cm/¾in apart. Tap the tray on a work surface to release any air bubbles. Let the macarons rest for 20-30 minutes before baking.

Bake in the oven for eight minutes.As soon as the macaroons form feet open and shut the oven door to release some steam.
After eight minutes remove from the oven and then leave on a cooling rack until completely cold.

Lemon Basil Cream :

Soak the gelatin sheet in a bowl of cold water until softened, 5 to 10 minutes.

Pour the egg into a heavy saucepan and add the sugar. Whisk the eggs with the sugar.

Whisk in the lemon juice. Continue to whisk over medium heat.
Tear the basil leaves into the pan and cook just until the cream comes to a boil and thickens.

Whisk in the softened gelatin.

Strain the cream over the softened butter. Using a hand mixer, beat the cream and butter for one minute until smooth.

Chill for at least an hour.

Assembling the macarons :

Spoon about one teaspoon of the lemon basil cream onto the flat side of a cooled macaroon and top with another macaroon to make a sandwich.

Bon Apetit!

4Jun2014

Sea Salt Caramel Macaroons

Posted in Caramel, Macarons by radhikasethi

Sweet and salty, this has always been one of my favorite food combinations. I absolutely love having my samosas and jalebis for those special Sunday brunch, not to forget the savory sev and sweet boondi at any time of the day.
Watching a movie sans salted and caramel pop-corns combo…..ummmm…..No, nie, can’t do. 🙂

Having made a rich, decadent and delicious salted caramel sauce successfully on my second attempt, I decided to bake macaroons to put them to good use. Leftover sauce can be refrigerated for about two weeks, drizzle some over an ice cream or french toast, use it for a creme caramel, bake chocolate cupcakes with caramel centers. I can’t stop thinking of how I am going to use mine. 🙂

In this recipe, I have opted to use the caramel sauce rather than making a butter-cream with it as this makes the caramel pop out and the star in the caramel macaroon recipe.I’ve used the basic macaroon recipe for the shells, coloring them in the ratio of yellow:ivory:red as 4:2:1. The caramel sauce needs to be tended to constantly as it can get burned in a matter of seconds.

The recipe is fairly straight forward and needless to say the fruit of my labor was well worth it!

Makes 24-30 depending on the size

Ingredients

For the pâté à macaron :
93 g icing sugar, sifted
93 g ground almonds
1 medium free-range egg whites

For the Italian meringue :
1 medium free-range egg whites
1 drop lemon juice or 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
93 g caster sugar
1.5 tbsp water
Golden yellow, ivory and red Food coloring

For the Caramel filling :
0.5 cup sugar
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
1/8 liquid cup water
1/2 liquid cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
½ teaspoon fine grain sea salt

Instructions :

Heat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3 and line two baking trays with baking paper.

Pâté à macaron:
In a large bowl, mix the icing sugar, ground almonds and egg whites to form a paste.

Italian meringue :
Whisk the egg whites and cream of tartar(or lemon juice) in a kitchen mixer on a medium speed.

Pipe on 3cm/1in discs on the baking trays, at least 2cm apart.

Salted Caramel :
In a heavy saucepan stir together the sugar, syrup, and water until the sugar is completely moistened.
Heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar dissolves and the syrup is bubbling.

Stop stirring completely and allow it to boil undisturbed until it turns a deep amber. Immediately remove it from the heat and slowly and carefully pour the hot cream into the caramel. It will bubble up furiously.

Stir in the butter and salt. The mixture will be streaky but become uniform after cooling slightly and stirring.

Cool completely before use.

Spoon about one teaspoon of caramel onto the flat side of a cooled macaroon and top with another macaroon to make a sandwich.

Repeat with the remaining macaroons and store in a single layer in an airtight container in the fridge.

Note: They keep well refrigerated for 2-3 days.

Bon Apetit!

22May2014

Chocolate Macaroons

Posted in Macarons by radhikasethi

We had a bake sale at our clubhouse fundraising and a lot of people were bringing different type of mouth watering cakes.Hence, I decided to go for cookies and made two dozen chocolate chip cookies.

Not satisfied with just cookies, I stepped back into my cute little kitchen to get down to business.Justifying my theory of there being a healthy French community in the club who would definitely appreciate macaroons, I got out all of my ingredients with much enthusiasm.
I usually use aged egg whites for macaroons, having none I used fresh ones and voila! they turned out pretty good as well.

This recipe is adapted from Raymond Blanc’s chocolate macaroons.

Chocolate Macaroon

Makes 24-30 depending on the size

Ingredients

For the pâté à macaron :
60g/2½oz unsweetened chocolate, ideally 100% cocoa solids
185g/6½oz icing sugar, sifted
185g/6½oz ground almonds
2 medium free-range egg whites
For the Italian meringue :
2 medium free-range egg whites
1 drop lemon juice or 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
185g/6½oz caster sugar
3 tbsp water
For the ganache filling :
100ml/4fl oz whipping cream
100g/4oz dark chocolate, or white chocolate if you wish

Instructions :

Heat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3 and line two baking trays with baking paper.

Pâté à macaron:
Melt the chocolate in a bowl suspended over a pan of simmering water – do not let the bottom of the bowl touch the water.
In a large bowl, mix the icing sugar, ground almonds and egg whites to form a paste.

Fold in the melted chocolate and set aside.

Pic from one of my earlier batches.

I happened to accidentally eat some of the chocolate which left my pâté à macaron looking like its weaker cousin.
Therefore, the macaron shells for this batch do not have the perfect brown color as expected.

Italian meringue :
Whisk the egg whites and lemon juice in a kitchen mixer on a medium speed.
The original recipe calls for using lemon juice, as i was out of lemons i have instead opted to use cream of tartar which works fine too.

Meanwhile, place the sugar and water in a small pan and cook over a high heat until it has reached 117C/242F or the ‘soft ball’ stage.I do not own a thermometer so I just tell when the bubbles are almost the same size, that’s the stage we are looking to achieve here.

Reduce the speed on the mixer to its lowest setting and pour the sugar syrup from the sides of the bowl onto the firmly whipped egg whites.
Increase the speed to high and continue to whisk for 2-3 minutes.

Fold the Italian meringue mixture into the pâté à macaron until it reaches the ribbon stage – this is when a spoonful of the mixture poured back into the bowl sits like a ribbon on the surface. Do not over-mix or the macaroon will crack when cooked.

Place the mixture in a piping bag fitted with a 8mm/¼in nozzle.

Pipe on 3cm/1in discs on the baking trays, at least 2cm/¾in apart, which i didn’t do. 😦

EXPECTED

Chocolate Ganache:
Place the cream in a small pan and bring to a boil.
Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the chocolate until the mixture is smooth.

Spoon about one teaspoon of ganache onto the flat side of a cooled macaroon and top with another macaroon to make a sandwich.
Repeat with the remaining ganache and macaroons and store in a single layer in an airtight container in the fridge.

NOTE: The recipe calls for preheating the baking trays as well and sliding on the baking paper with the piped macaroons onto them (pre-heating the baking trays kick-starts the cooking and forms the distinctive ‘collarette’ on the base of the macaroons).