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...

Champagne Macarons

Dear readers,

I wanted to create a recipe using popping candy and I thought that champagne macarons would be the perfect vehicle for this ingredient. It was also a great time of year to eat champagne macarons and I had managed to save a little champagne from my birthday earlier in the month.

I was unsure on how to incorporate the popping candy since the 'pop' would disappear if it came into contact with anything wet. I came across this recipe where the popping candy had been coated with white chocolate to protect the chocolate from the moisture in the buttercream.

I used the same base recipe and method as I did for my Kaffir Lime and Coconut Macarons, and followed the idea of coating the popping candy from The Little Loaf.

Champagne Macarons

90g egg white

140g + 200g icing sugar

100g ground almonds

44g caster sugar

45ml champagne

100g butter

100g white chocolate

50g popping candy

Gold edible lustre

This recipe will make around 32 macarons (64 shells).

Sieve the almonds and 140g of the icing sugar together. Whisk the egg whites until they become stiff, then add the caster sugar 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. Bang the baking tray gently on a flat surface to help the circles flatten and remove excess air. Leave to rest for 45 minutes. 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 18 minutes, then set aside to cool before removing from the baking sheet. Gently dust the shells with gold edible lustre.

Gently melt the white chocolate in the microwave. Pour in the popping candy, mix well and then pour out onto baking paper. Allow to cool then peel off of the baking paper and break it up into small pieces.

Sieve 200g icing sugar and cream with the butter, then mix in the champagne. Pipe the buttercream onto the base of one shell, place in a couple of pieces of popping candy chocolate, add a little more buttercream and glue together with another shell. Repeat until all shells have been glued together.

Notes:
The chocolate certainly helped protect the popping candy from the moisture in the buttercream, however, after a couple of days the 'popping' had significantly reduced. Therefore, I would recommend eating the macarons as quickly as possible after they have been made.

I left the piped macaron circles to rest by a radiator, since it was the middle of December when I made these. If the circles are dry to touch then they are ready. If they are not, leave them to rest a little longer.

The champagne flavour was very subtle but it was detectable. I was thinking about combining the champagne with another flavour in the shells, but I am very glad that I decided not to because I am sure that it would have taken away the champagne flavour in the buttercream.

I found these macarons to be more successful (structure-wise) than my previous Kaffir Lime and Coconut Macarons. I was quite impressed when they baked first time with perfect feet and a lovely sheen on the top! I think that the banging of the piped circles is a very important step when making macarons.

I couldn't resist including a photo with my beautiful red sparkly Christmas nails!

 

I wish you all a wonderful New Year. I will be abroad working with chocolate and hope to post about it soon!

Kaffir Lime and Coconut Macarons

Dear readers,

After over two years of blogging, I thought that it was about time for me to try making macarons. I've heard that they are challenging, and that they were; I baked five batches at various baking conditions. The main problem that I experienced was the cracking of the shells. I have read pages and pages about the making of macarons and I think that I have finally (not) cracked it!


Kaffir lime leaf is one of my most favourite flavours in the world. It is so fragrant, aromatic and invigorating. I believe that kaffir lime leaves are the one ingredient that captures the essence of Thailand - a Thai curry is nothing without them! I searched the internet for kaffir lime leaf flavoured macarons and, to my surprise, I couldn't find one recipe. I decided that this situation needs to be changed.
Kaffir Lime and Coconut Macarons
8 kaffir lime leaves finely chopped
 45g egg white (aged for 2 days at room temperature)
70g + 100g icing sugar
50g ground almonds
22g caster sugar
Green food colouring (powder or gel - the amount will vary depending on the type used)
30g coconut cream

This recipe will make 16 macarons (32 shells).

Sieve the almonds and 70g icing sugar. Whisk the egg whites until they become stiff, then add the caster sugar and food colouring and whisk until stiff again. Fold in the kaffir lime leaves and 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. Leave to rest for 45 minutes. 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 15 minutes, then set aside to cool before removing from the baking sheet.

Sieve 100g icing sugar and mix with the coconut cream. Pour into a piping bag and pipe onto the bottom of the shells to glue them together.

Notes:
In most meringue recipes, minimal folding is required in order to keep as much air in the mixture as possible. I learned (many cracked macarons later) that macaron batter requires a lot of the air to be stirred out before it is piped. This is tricky, since not stirring enough will ruin the macarons and so will stirring too much! About 10 stirs will leave the batter runny enough so that once it has been piped, it spreads out and flattens a little to yield flat surfaces.

Baking times and temperatures may vary - it depends on your oven and also the weather! This is the recipe that (finally) worked for me.

In winter, rest the macarons near a radiator.

To those who sampled these without knowing the flavour, limey and herby flavours were described. I agree that kaffir lime leaves have lime and herb-like flavours. I think that it was difficult to identify the kaffir lime leaf flavour alone as people are generally used to eating them in savoury dishes with lots of other flavours. Some friends actually said that these macarons remind them of Thai curry! The aromatic kaffir lime leaves and the smooth and creamy coconut do make a fine pairing and are very much associated with Thai cuisine. I think that they make quite a fine pairing in macarons, too!

I am glad that I have now accomplished the "macaron challenge". I think that I will put them to one side for now, but hope to try out a different flavour combination in the future! Has anyone else found these as tricky as I have?