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!