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!