Chick Macarons with a Cherry Sauce - Happy 4th Birthday to my blog!

Dear readers,

Chicken in a Cherry Sauce has just turned four!

Thanks so much to you, my readers, who have supported this blog! I really enjoy being part of the online food blogging community; there are so many beautiful and inspirational blogs out there! I would like to give extra special thanks to those of you who regularly visit my blog despite my sometimes infrequent posting. I really appreciate your patience and loyalty!

To celebrate I decided to make some "Chicks with a Cherry Sauce" in the form of macarons sandwiched with cherry sauce. I thought that this would also fit quite well with Easter coming up! They didn't turn out quite as uniform as my Champagne Macarons (hence I haven't photographed many of them). However, this could be considered as a part of their character. I think that I got lucky with my success on the Champagne Macarons - these chick macarons took three attempts to get right! Clearly I have yet to master the art of making macarons.

I have been a little lazy with these and left the shell plain almond flavour with a very basic filling of cherry jam! Nonetheless, I think that these simple flavours go well together.

As with my Champagne Macarons, I used the same base recipe that I developed with my Kaffir Lime and Coconut Macarons.

Chick Macarons with a Cherry Sauce
45g egg white (preferably aged for 2 days at room temperature)
70g + 20g icing sugar
50g ground almonds
22g caster sugar
Yellow food colouring (powder or gel - the amount will vary depending on the type used)
Black icing
100g cherry jam

This recipe will make 16 macarons (32 shells).

Sieve the almonds and 70g of icing sugar together. Whisk the egg whites until they become stiff, then add the caster sugar and food colouring and whisk until stiff again. Fold in the sieved icing sugar and ground almonds. Stir a few times until the batter has a runny consistency. Pour the mixture into a piping bag and pipe circles of the mixture onto silicone baking sheets. Tap the baking tray gently on a flat surface to help the circles flatten and remove excess air. Leave to rest for 45 minutes until the tops become matte and dry. Preheat the oven to 170°C. Place the macarons in the oven and immediately turn the temperature down to 140°C. Place a wooden spoon in the door of the oven to hold it ajar for the duration of the cooking. Bake for 20 minutes, then set aside to cool before removing from the baking sheet.

Add a few drops of water and orange food colouring to create an icing dough. Roll it out and cut out small triangles for the beaks. Add a little more water to the leftover icing and use that to glue the beaks to half of the macaron shells. Finish the decoration using black icing for the eyes.

Sandwich the chick face shells and the plain shells together with cherry jam.

Notes:
Do not use gel icing for the eyes! I had just finished decorating them on a Sunday evening when it started to get dark and the eyes were still wet so I left them to dry. A week later, the eyes were still wet. So I had to be quite careful in handling them so that I didn't smudge the eyes and cover the macarons with black icing!

I did research Chick Macarons before I made mine and found some beautiful and adorable creations. I particularly like these that were made by Raspberri Cupcakes. As one may see, I found the photographs inspiring!

Watch out... the chicks might lay a Cadbury's Mini Egg while you're not looking...