Brainstorming macaron flavours...

Jackie and I at work!

          This Friday is my sweetie pie Jackie's birthday and I decided I would make her a mini macaron tower for her birthday. I also wanted to experiment with inventing and mixing up my own macaron flavours...I really want to try making Red berry macarons (strawberry shell with mixed berry jam), Chai latte (marsala shell with vanilla bean buttercream), I really want to make pistachio but for the sake of the lemons falling off our tree - Lemon tart (lemon shell with lemon curd). Might also experiment with different nut meals, I just read that Australian almond meal has the tendency to be a lil on the wet side and you should dry it out first but to be honest I have never done this and it has caused zero problems for me. Just as it's not necessary to age your whites (dehydrates them), never had a problem either way! Ahhh this week is going to be an exciting week in the kitchen. It is hard to explain the joy I get as I eagerly watch my lil babies growing in the oven! ^_^

Mutant lemons from our tree! They are completely organic and we get
more and more fruit every year, occassionally I bottle my own lemonade
concentrate - perfect summer thirst quencher! Simply boil appox.
1:1 ratio of sugar and lemon juice (depends on your taste and the fruit)

         *Update*
The lemon macarons were lovely but next time I would fill before serving cos the curd made it a bit too moist and delicate. The berry ones are yummy but I ran out of jam and filled some with curd for strawberry lemonade flavoured ones!! The chais did not turn out :( too much air - it grew a foot then kept growing dome shaped and cracked so sad!! T_T they collapsed so I toasted them and made chai snaps - the flavour is to die for but next time I will just grind the spices instead of using the instant chai mix (might work better!) but for now I'm sick of the kitchen lol I have a new hobby instead!

Matcha Macarons Take 2! + Peanut Macarons.

Macarons Take 2

     Today I commenced take 2 of making the perfect matcha macaron and macaron in general...and I learnt 2 extremely important things - 1. temperature and age does not matter! And to think yesterday most my macarons were cracked and under cooked, it was a hugeeee improvement. I made perfect macaronage separating eggs and letting them sit whilst preparing the other ingredients and 2. letting the "crust" form/ making sure the shell felt dry to touch before baking was essential for nice smooth macarons. I used fan forced and preheated at 175C then lowered to 150C when I put the first try in, turned the heat up for a couple of minutes in between each tray to ensure proper temp (made it easier to know when it was cooked). I also had a trial tray that I put in first to calculate baking time and to ensure optimum baking conditions - the result? every tray I baked pied, rose evenly and cooked. They all came off the tray without any hassle AND I baked on a single tray with a single sheet of baking paper!

*I should mention on a side note that I used one less eggwhite - so 90g eggwhites...30g castor sugar. My batter was not as runny as yesterdays!

Like I said I only have a star nozzle haha but
 I love the unique ridges on the macaron.

The bottom looks like this when cooked
and peals right off the baking sheet

I also tried making peanut ones using only ground roasted peanuts, it formed a very smooth runny batter after only a few turns...I think next time I will put more peanut meal to make it denser or a little bit of almond meal...which I didn't add as I didn't want it to take away the peanut flavour. The resulting macarons were very airy and a few had ruffled pied. But the crunch, chewiness and flavour are to die for esp. combined with the bitter dark chocolate ganache! 

As far as the matcha macarons were concerned...they were perfect! I made a 2nd batch of Koshian with only 1/2cup of caster sugar, spread a some leftover ganache on the shells then piped on stars of koshian. The flavour was much richer and taster without the added cream and the texture was just lovely! This will be my filling of choice everytime I make matcha macarons, its very traditional Japanese in terms of ingredients and just sensational!

Macarons...

So today I made the macaron shells...I suppose my heat wasn't 100% even in my oven, T_T resulting in some cracked shells bordering some decent looking macarons. I am going to try again tomorrow for 2 reasons - 1. I have a lot of koshian cream leftover and 2. my strive for perfection. But with one less egg white and they will petite sized macarons instead!

Here are some pics of today...

Add your sugar slowly at slow speed. when
 I get a few ripples I stop and swap to my whisk.

Til I get this...stiff shiny glossy peaks. STOP!
Don't over beat. I whisk and check a lot when I'm close.

Add to your powder mix and fold 50 strokes max.

Fill your piping ball, I used a big star nozzle cos
I don't have a plain one but it's ok cos it smooths up.



Like so :) rap & tap your pan to release the big
bubbles then let it sit for an hour whilst preheating your oven.

 They took about 14-16mins to cook cos they were bigger. Cool them and pipe your cream on! They taste better overnight in the fridge but if you don't have paitence like me, have a nice mug of bitter black tea or matcha and a macaron(or 2 or 3 or 4...they are too good!).
In hindsight I would've used less cream but I was using a whatever was leftover in the carton and didn't want to leave the most useless lil bit in the fridge, but it makes for a very light sweet chewy treat all round so I didn't mind.

Mad about Macarons!

          The other day I decided to make a cake, after a long absence from the kitchen. Inspired but the current anime I was watching at the time Yumeiro Patissiere, I grabbed my Japanese small cakes and tarts book flipped through and invented my own delightful layered cake. Layers of soft whipped cream  with stewed mandarins and Japanese egg custard filling sandwiched between 4 layers of heavenly soft sponge cake made the Japanese style without butter! 

*I whipped my cream using a hand whisk with the cream in a bowl on ice - it is easier and you don't over whip and split your cream. esp handy tip for summer!

         After my success of my mandarin layered cake I ventured on to make a Green tea pound cake with the matcha my mum was nagging me to use - It was a disaster!!
         My first mistake was in measurements the recipe called for 2 sticks of butter...no big deal right? Well it was in US measurements where 1stick of butter is 110g...over here in Aus a stick of butter is 250g...It turned my cake into a delicious butter pound cake instead! T_T
Not that it would've matter because the matcha was more grandulated than powdered and never blended into the batter anyway! I still got compliments on the cake which was the lightest most moist butter cake I've ever tasted, not to mention most of the excess butter melted out of the cake so I simply rested the cake on a piece of kitchen paper as it cooled.
        After that I couldn't stop thinking about baking with matcha powder...hmmm...should I make another pound cake? then it hit me. Macarons. I had made them once before, petite strawberry macarons with a dark chocolate & strawberry ganache, they looked so cute bottled up as sweet treat christmas gifts. I have been itching to try again, they were pretty easy the first time round except I might've added a bit too much dry mix and it was very hard to pipe. This time I am more prepared, I have googled extensively and can't wait til I make them tomorrow!

Korean Matcha/Nokcha powder

             So today I preped, It took me 4 Japanese/Korean supermarkets to find the matcha powder - the colour, aroma and texture of it is totally different to the one my mum bought from Japan! I guess the other one was more for beverages than cooking. Anyways you have to age your eggwhites 24-48hrs at room temp this makes it easier to create your meringue base, I am using a recipe that uses a French meringue base rather than the Italian method which uses hot sugar syrup. I always use a metal bowl and squeeze lemon juice on to the whisk or beaters, rinse and dry before using to remove any grease that may prevent my egg whites from becoming stiff! I used to over whip too so now I beat to soft peaks and manually whip till I reach stiff peaks. The other day I whipped 8 eggwhites for my sponge sheet cakes using a whisk - I would not recommend it at all... My arm felt like it was going to fall off...

Mix your powdered sugar, matcha & almond meal

*If you are unsure which method of meringue to go for visit this handy site. Also My Lemony Kitchen is an interesting read, she gives a personal insight to using all 3 types of meringues (French, Italian & Swiss).

Then sift it and pulse any chunky bits (don't waste expensive ingredients!)
 then sift it again atleast twice! I sifted 3 times.

I measured and prepared all my ingredients for tomorrow so I won't be stopping to find anything, I would recommend it!
However I am using a different recipe for Green tea Macarons

Green Tea Macarons from Trangs kitchen adapted from Food je t'aime who adapted her recipe of Tartlette ^_^

INGREDIENTS:110 gm blanched almond flour (I usually buy almond flour in Whole Food Market)
200 gm minus 1 1/2 tbsp. confectioners’ sugar
1 1/2 tbsp matcha powder
100 gm egg whites (from about 3 eggs), aged at room temperature for 24-48 hours
50 gm granulated sugar

Directions
1. Sift the confectioners' sugar, almond flour and matcha powder for several times
until blended. In a clean large bowl, beat the egg whites on high speed until foamy.
Gradually add the granulated sugar and continue beating until a smooth,
shiny meringue with stiff peaks forms. Add the ground almond mixture
to the meringue bowl all at once, then quickly but gently fold together using
a wide rubber spatula until no streaks remain (fold for about 50 strokes). You want to achieve a
thick batter that ribbons or flows from the spatula when lifted. And when you draw a line in the batter by your stapula, the batter will come together after you count from 1 to 5.

2. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper. Transfer the batter to a
piping bag fitted with a plain wide round tip. Pipe into small rounds on the prepared baking sheets, spaced about 2 inches apart. Let sit at room temperature for about an hour to develop a hard shell.

3. Preheat the oven to 300 degree F. Bake for 8-10 minutes, depending on size. Transfer the pans to a
wire cooling rack and let cool completely before moving the cookies.

*Now I read somewhere that cooked cookies should come off the sheet even before they are completely cooled and that you should bake at subsequent 1-2min blocks monitoring very carefully...:P I guess I will find out tomorrow!

Koshian(adzuki) filling
I am using Yumi's recipe from the delectable hodgepodge well kind of... lol

Adzuki beans (they are actually deep red but my LED makes it look colourful!)

Ingredients
3/4 cup dried adzuki beans
3/4 cup castor sugar
3 3/4 cup water

mini crockpot(slow cooker)

Wash and drain adzuki beans, put in small crockpot with 3 3/4 cups of water and cook til soft. I cooked it for about 5hrs then strained most of the liquid out. Process the beans to a thick smooth paste and transfer to a pot, add the sugar and some liquid if too thick. Cook over low heat til it sticks to your wooden paddle - stir constantly to prevent burning. I took it off the heat a lil before it reached the consistency I wanted as it will lose water cooling down and thicken up even more.
It looked like this off the stove..

And becomes like this...

Make sure the paste is completely cool.
Then whip your cream (appox. 3/4 cup double/thickened/whipping cream) to stiff peaks and fold with your Koshian to combined.

Then...TASTE IT!! ^_^ oishi ne!