swiss meringue

It Takes All Sorts Of Macarons To Make The World Go Round

27.10.2009 130 Comments

I love, like, enjoy, many people and many things in this life but if there is one thing that I live for on the weekends is when B. comes home from playing music and we sit on the bed and geek out for hours about all sorts of topics. Photography, films, history, and often times, food. Before we know, it’s three o’clock in the morning (not his bedtime at all) and we go to sleep with growling stomachs and visions of sugar plums. Especially when we geek out about macarons. Especially when they are Peanut Butter and Jelly, Lemon Meringue Pie and Banana Caramel Macarons.

We were recently putting together a care package for a friend in town and we started brainstorming about what to include. Macarons, are always first on the list for some reason, eheh! I was looking for flavors I had not done before and he was looking to recreate some of his favorites. In the end, our friend S. received 2/3 of the Daring Bakers challenge delivered right to her front steps. From the look on her face, I knew I’d be repeating these flavors over again.

Bill’s go-to breakfast is a bagel with peanut butter and jelly and turning this into a macaron was very easy. I used half almond and half peanuts for the shells and filled those with a teaspoon each of peanut butter and homemade raspberry jelly.

One of my favorite desserts is lemon meringue pie and after coniving on the best way to make this into a macaron, I finally settled on keeping the shells all almonds and adding the zest of one lemon to the batter. I filled the insides with homemade lemon curd and a teaspoon of freshly made Swiss meringue.

One of my husband’d favorite snacks when he comes home from playing music is to cut up a banana and drizzle it with Salidou, the homemade salted butter caramel sauce that I always keep handy in the fridge. For the macarons I simply mashed a whole banana and mixed it with the leftover from the Taffy Apples I posted yesterday. Once cooled and naturally thickened a bit, it was easy to pipe on the macarons shells and sandwich them.

I’ve known about this month challenge since this summer when Amy emailed with concerns about doing macarons for the Daring Bakers. We covered all types of questions from aging the egg whites, drying the macs before baking to food coloring and how to best incorporate flavors. I volunteered a phone macaron making session and guided her over the phone while she baked my tried and true recipe. In the end she felt most comfortable with the version she knew best, Claudia Flemming’s, which brought on my most common comment about macarons: if you find a recipe that works for you, stick to it, no matter whose it is, especially if you are new to macarons and don’t make them that often.

Amy, thank you for the fun phone macaron making session and it was a pleasure helping out with some of your questions!

I’m glad I tried a new recipe for macarons and did not have any problems with it, probably because I’ve been making them for 15 years so I know what to expect. I will however stick to the recipe I use all the time, for no other reason that it is engrained in my DNA right now!

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Macarons, from Claudia Flemming' The Last Course: The Desserts Of Gramercy Tavern.

Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)
Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)
Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)
Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)

Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.
Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.
Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).
Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
Cool on a rack before filling.

For the PB&J Macarons:– Replace half the amount of almonds with finely ground unsalted roasted peanuts.
– Once cooled, fill the shells with a dollop of peanut butter (either smooth or crunchy) and jam.

For the Lemon Meringue Macarons:
– Fill the shells with a teaspoon or so of freshly made lemon curd
– Add a teaspoon or so of Swiss meringue. (I made half the recipe)

For the Caramel Banana Macarons:
– Mixed one smashed banana with half the quantity of toffee sauce I made for the dipped crabapples.

I heart Macarons

09.02.2009 140 Comments

You would have to live in a cave these days not to realize that Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. Those lovely sweet tarts! And the chocolate kisses! And the heart shaped cookies! And the cutest heart adorned cupcakes! Shades of pink and red… everywhere. Well, I guess I live in one because when a friend called and asked if I could make her some macarons for Valentine’s Day, I replied "oh yes sure, just remind me when it’s closer to that time". Silence. "Ugh, it’s soon, really. Like next week!" My turn to be silent.

I admit we don’t really celebrate Valentine’s Day. For as long as I remember I was always stuck at work that evening and even now that we could, B. always seems to have a music gig that night. Nothing against V-Day, not even the countless years of having me hide rings and earrings in desserts at the restaurant! I love romance. I am a hopeless romantic. I love old, well – read books and often create a romantic, often sad story behind their earmarked pages. I love old black and white movies and spending a few hours with Jimmy Stewart, a couple of macarons and a glass of milk (don’t question the association, it just works)

Hard to believe when the first words that came out of my mouth when I met B. were "and now I am going to have to eat chicken!" instead of "Hi! You just bought the last ticket to the gala dinner! You are going to love the squab!". This was followed by "you’re hot" when I should have said "you’re sweet" when we got to talk later. He is hot, and he makes me lose my marbles, even today. Taking an extra day to celebrate that would send me straight to the mad house!!

I understand how a day devoted to celebrating love can give a timid suitor the necessary strength to propose or take the next step. Turns out my friend Linda could use all the help she can get as she will be proposing on V-Day and she thought that a batch of cute romantic macarons could sweeten the pot. I already know she does not need to worry and I accepted her request with a happy and giddy heart. I love it when there is a purpose behind, when you know there is something important shaping up and you have been part of it.

I guess I was deep in my thoughts and forgot to be stunned when B. said "So what would you like to do for Valentine’s Day?". Silence from me. Really trying to word this the right way so he won’t have any way out "I’d like to make macarons with you. I’d like if you could grind and shake, shift and fold with me. I’ll even let you build things with them when they are done". Interesting how much we got done within a couple of hours…even a makeshift macaron Eiffel Tower balancing on the counter top… What do you think I was going to say, eh?!!

We used a mix of almonds and pistachios for the macaron shells and kept one half uncolored and the other bright cherry pink. I purposely did not add white coloring to the other shells which I sometimes do and let them get a nice shade of antique pink while cooking. To draw the heart, I simply set aside a tablespoon of each batter and drew hearts on the shells with a toothpick dipped in the batters before baking them. We filled them with B.’s favorite spiced Swiss meringue buttercream with hints of cardamom and star anise.

Valentine’s Day Macarons Recipe:

For the shells:
90 gr egg whites (about 3)
30 gr granulated sugar
200 gr powdered sugar
55 gr almonds
55gr pistachios
pink cherry powdered food coloring (the end color will depend on how much you use)

For the whites: the day before (24hrs), separate your eggs and store the whites at room temperature in a covered container. If you want to use 48hrs (or more) egg whites, you can store them in the fridge. In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites to a foam, gradually add the sugar until you obtain a glossy meringue. Do not overbeat your meringue or it will be too dry. Combine the almonds, pistachios and powdered sugar in a food processor and give them a good pulse until the nuts are finely ground. Add them to the meringue, give it a quick fold to break some of the air and then fold the mass carefully until you obtain a batter that flows like lava or a thick ribbon. Give quick strokes at first to break the mass and slow down. The whole process should not take more than 50 strokes. Test a small amount on a plate: if the tops flattens on its own you are good to go. If there is a small beak, give the batter a couple of turns.
Divide the batter in half and mix some color to one half to the desired effect. Fill a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip (Ateco #807 or #809) with one of the batters and pipe small rounds (1.5 inches in diameter) onto parchment paper lined baking sheets. Use another bag for the second half of the batter.
Preheat the oven to 280F. Let the macarons sit out for 30 minutes to an hour to harden their shells a bit and bake for 20-22 minutes, depending on their size. Let cool. If you have trouble removing the shells, pour a couple of drops of water under the parchment paper while the sheet is still a bit warm and the macarons will lift up more easily do to the moisture. Don’t let them sit there in it too long or they will become soggy. Once baked and if you are not using them right away, store them in an airtight container out of the fridge for a couple of days or in the freezer. To fill: pipe or spoon about 1 big tablespoon in the center of one shell and top with another one.

Spiced Buttercream:
1/2 cup (100gr) sugar
2 large egg whites
1 1/2 sticks (6 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/8 teaspoon star anise
pinch of salt

Put the sugar and egg whites in a large heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, about 3 minutes. The sugar should be dissolved, and the mixture will look like marshmallow cream. Pour the mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and beat the meringue on medium speed until it cools and forms a thick shiny meringue, about 5 minutes. Switch to the paddle attachment and add the butter, one tablespoon at a time, beating until smooth. Once all the butter is in, beat in the buttercream on medium-high speed until it is thick and very smooth, 6-10 minutes. Add the spices and salt and whip for another 10 seconds to incorporate it. If not using right away, refrigerate for up to a week or freeze for up to 1 month.

Strawberry & Vanilla Floating Islands

02.02.2009 84 Comments

It had been a while since I had the night off to bake something just for us. No book recipe to test, no challenge, no order or request. Just for us. In moments like this I tend to gravitate towards childhood memories and desserts I learned to make with my mother and grandmother. Simple desserts made so often that I bake them from memories with only the guidelines they used to whisper as I was standing on the little step stool next to the kitchen counter. It always amazes me how clearly I can still hear my grandmother’s voice every time I make Floating Islands for example.

Many years after her passing, Mamie Paulette is still here as I separate the eggs and mix them with sugar to make those lovely clouds of meringues. Everytime I cut through a vanilla bean I respectfully scrape every bean to the last one "pour ne pas gaspiller" (not to waste) and put the pods in small jars of sugar to flavor it. Whenever we would make creme brulees, we would have floating islands or "iles flottantes" a few days later. Again, "pour ne pas gaspiller". I seem to faithfully carry on the tradition. I measure my egg whites, double their weight in sugar (which you can use as a guideline to increase or decrease the number of servings) and make a Swiss meringue. Stirring as she would to, still fascinated at the magic a couple of ingredients can create once baked…

After the vanilla bean mousse for the Daring Bakers challenge and the creme brulee tartelettes I had enough egg whites for a batch of macarons and some floating islands. The same week, juicy strawberry were on sale at the market and between my mother in law and us, I somehow ended up with about 5 pounds of them. I tried my best to use them but work got in the way and I decided to turn most of them into a coulis and freeze it in ice cube trays. That way I can easily portion out what I need for ice creams, sorbets, buttercreams, mousses later on. Some was used for the Floating Islands instead of the creme anglaise (vanilla custard sauce) they are traditionally served with. I hope mamie won’t scream "sacre bleu" since we are severe creme anglaise addicts in the family. I think she would have approved of the variation.

She would either bake the meringue in a baking dish in a water bath and scoop out portions for each of us or divide it in between several glasses and ramekins and bake invidual ones. I liked the latter best as my role once the meringues were baked was to invert them into the pool of sauce and I loved watching how they would just slide on down the glass and float around in the plates. I did the same thing here and decided to skip the traditional decoration of caramel sauce or caramel strands as I wanted to add a little touch of color to the glasses and used finely chopped pistachios instead. There was just not enough time in the day to let me play with caramel which I tend to get carried away with anyway…

The end result was just perfect after a full day at the office. The soft and delicate vanilla scented meringue contrasting with the energizing and fragrant strawberry coulis. Enough to make you want to put on your pajamas to take the dogs for a walk…

Strawberry & Vanilla Floating Islands Recipe:

Serves 4

For the strawberry coulis:
16 oz (500gr) strawberries, hulled and quartered
1/4 cup (50gr) sugar
1/4 cup (60ml) lemon juice

In a medium saucepan, bring the strawberries with the sugar and lemon juice to a simmer over medium low heat. Cook for an additional 2 to 3 minutes. Let cool to room temperature and puree the mixture in a blender or food processor. Divide evenly between 4 dishes or glasses.

For the floating islands:
2 egg whites (60gr)
1/2 cup+1.5 tablespoons (120gr) sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, seeded

Coat 4 ramekins of your choice with cooking spray, place them in a deep baking dish set on a baking tray, set aside.
Preheat the oven to 250F.
Place the egg whites, sugar and the seeds from the vanilla bean in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water and cook until the mixture registers 140F on a candy thermoter, whisking constantly. Remove from the heat and whip the mixture with an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment until double in volume and cool to the touch. Pipe or spoon the meringue into the ramekins and fill the baking dish with hot water almost 3/4 of the way up. Bake for 20-30 minutes until the meringues are slightly dry to the touch. Using tongs, remove the ramekins from the baking dish and set aside to cool to room temperature. Once cooled, invert them and let the meringue slide right off over the strawberry coulis.
Decorate with cut strawberries and chopped pistachios is desired.

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Note: If you liked the White Chocolate and Lemon Souffles from last week, you can find 3 more recipes I made for Desserts Magazine. Bittersweet Chocolate Souffles, White Chocolate Souffles and Chesnut Milk Chocolate Tapioca Souffles. It’s all about chocolate this month!

Black Tie Macarons And A Calendar Girl

20.11.2008 77 Comments

These are not the Frenchie version of Oreos but rather Black Tie Macarons that I made for a party, not that I don’t ~~like~~ love Oreos mind you! You see, I don’t usually mingle with B’s music jobs unless they are at a restaurant or some gig for the city. They are jobs, fun and full of passion for music but they are jobs nonetheless. It’s not "Take your spouse to work" kind of day. He’s focused, he’s playing, he needs to mingle and talk to the guests. Then once in a while they are the jobs that I find myself completely intertwined with. It can be a client of mine marrying her daughter and having his band play, a restaurant we both love is having the band that night, etc… And then there are the jobs where I am supplying desserts or favors and his band is playing that night. Usually we are pretty good at keeping track of our schedules and I know where and when he plays and he can keep track of where I am by following the crumbs I leave behind me (not that far from the truth, really)! There are weeks however where we would not even see a giant pink neon post-it with our "where to be/what to wear" list even if it stared us in the face. It seems that the week before I headed to Lisa, I did not register as well a lot of info thrown at me and B. remembered two music jobs at the last minute, rushing in the house in shorts and tee shirt and running out in black pants, crisp white shirt in less than 2 minutes.

When you play music at the same restaurant for 20 something years, locals get to know you and you get to know them. When your spouse ends up working in the kitchen there, you widen the circle. Patrons start asking if you play for private parties and if your spouse can make a dessert table for said events and then you need more giant neon post-its…! Well last week we did not realize that we were working the same party and that our schedules were going to cross path. A dear to us couple was celebrating their 50th anniversary in an all out "Black Tie Affair" and while B. had the responsibility to toot his horn (literally), I had been asked to make macarons inspired by the event. Hmmm…It took me 2 seconds to decide I was going to make "Black Tie Macarons" filled with Swiss meringue buttercream.

Although I had seen black macarons before I had always thought that there was no way a tablespoon or two of powdered food coloring would be enough to make them deep dark. When I tried the experiment last year, they indeed turned out grey. After calling a couple of friends back home, I came to realize that the strength of the color was different from one country to the next. Different reasons later, I still had not tried them with another brand. The small bakery supply store where Lisa took Kelly and me to get the wedding cake pans had lots of stuff I would have loved to play with but my mission was to find the proper cake pans for the wedding cake. I was right on track until my eye caught a glimpse of their food coloring shelf…and there it was: one single bottle of black powdered food coloring. I looked at the label: one little goofy chef holding a whisk and the words "made in France". No brand. In a split second, it felt like the bottle was burning a hole in my hand, "my precious"….Then again, once back here after the wedding, life took over and I put the black macs aside until this couple called with their order. I am glad they trusted me with the idea and I was so pleased of how they turned out…but "my precious" is now empty again.

So yes, it was a good experiment, one I am willing to reproduce by working with the food colors I find here but I tend to like macarons on the natural to light color side and unless I am specifically asked for an unusual color, I don’t think I would have done "bright blue" or deep black ( I did add some pearl dust and sesame seeds for the optical effect at the party). The color had almost purple hues at times and the guests loved them but let’s face it…good thing it was dark and they did not show one another their tongues. It is a little too early in the season to be "eating coal"..eheheh!

Black Tie Macarons:

For the shells:
90 gr egg whites (about 3)
30 gr granulated sugar
200 gr powdered sugar
110 gr almonds
black powdered food coloring (the end color will depend on how much you use)

For the whites: the day before (24hrs), separate your eggs and store the whites at room temperature in a covered container. If you want to use 48hrs (or more) egg whites, you can store them in the fridge. In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites to a foam, gradually add the sugar until you obtain a glossy meringue. Do not overbeat your meringue or it will be too dry. Combine the almonds and powdered sugar in a food processor and give them a good pulse until the nuts are finely ground. Add them to the meringue, give it a quick fold to break some of the air and then fold the mass carefully until you obtain a batter that flows like magma or a thick ribbon. Give quick strokes at first to break the mass and slow down. The whole process should not take more than 50 strokes. Test a small amount on a plate: if the tops flattens on its own you are good to go. If there is a small beak, give the batter a couple of turns. Fill a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip (Ateco #807 or #809) with the batter and pipe small rounds (1.5 inches in diameter) onto parchment paper lined baking sheets. Preheat the oven to 280F. Let the macarons sit out for 30 minutes to an hour to harden their shells a bit and bake for 20-22 minutes, depending on their size. Let cool. If you have trouble removing the shells, pour a couple of drops of water under the parchment paper while the sheet is still a bit warm and the macarons will lift up more easily do to the moisture. Don’t let them sit there in it too long or they will become soggy. Once baked and if you are not using them right away, store them in an airtight container out of the fridge for a couple of days or in the freezer. To fill: pipe or spoon about 1 big tablespoon in the center of one shell and top with another one.

Swiss Meringue Buttercream:
1/2 cup (100gr) sugar
2 large egg whites
1 1/2 sticks (6 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Put the sugar and egg whites in a large heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, about 3 minutes. The sugar should be dissolved, and the mixture will look like marshmallow cream. Pour the mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and beat the meringue on medium speed until it cools and forms a thick shiny meringue, about 5 minutes. Switch to the paddle attachment and add the butter, one tablespoon at a time, beating until smooth. Once all the butter is in, beat in the buttercream on medium-high speed until it is thick and very smooth, 6-10 minutes. Add the vanilla and whip for another 10 seconds to incorporate it.

Tartelette Calendar - Customized calendar

Tartelette is now a calendar girl…!! Hmm, not in a red polka dot bikini but in the form of some favorite pictures of the past year. It all started when my mother asked me to make one so she could buy it for family and friends as stocking stuffers, then my aunt mentionned it to me again as in "your mom asked me to remind you to make that calendar this year"…and then I happily received email requests, so here it is! I hope you like it. The year has surely been a full and fast one!
You can purchase one by following this link, Tartelette Calendar on Zazzle or by clicking on the calendar icon on the sidebar.

swiss meringue

It Takes All Sorts Of Macarons To Make The World Go Round

I *heart* Macarons

Strawberry & Vanilla Floating Islands

Black Tie Macarons And A Calendar Girl

I heart Macarons