Making French Macarons :)

To those couples who are married or dating, Happy Valentine's Day!! :) Those who are single, and waiting for that special person in their lives, I would say, Happy Love Day! :) It's a good time to embrace the special people around us, our families and friends.
I went to The Gourmandise School to learn the secret of baking French Macarons. There are many blogs documneting their experiements and experiences with macaroons but I decided to get a hands-on experience with it. It turned out to be really fun and I enjoyed the session! Myths like aging the eggs for a week, or hitting the pan on table before baking are actually not necesary.

I'm going to take you on a brief  journey of what I learned.:) We made Hazelnut Macarons with Milk chocolate passionfruit ganache, Vanilla Macarons with lemon curd, and pistachio macarons with Italian Raspberry buttercream, or pear buttercream. :) There are actually many versions that can be made if you tweak some of the flavors and ingredients. I'm  looking forward to making more varieties in the future. :)

In addition, we made heart-shaped ones, to go along with the valentine's day theme. It's easy..just pipe them heart-shaped from the piping bag.

Items needed to make the vanilla macarons: 140 grams egg whites (about 4), 80 grams vanilla sugar ( 2/3cup), 240 grams powdered sugar ( 2 cups), 3 grams egg white powder ( 1/2 tsp), 180 grams almond flour ( scant 2 cups), 2 grams salt.
Steps: Place the almond flour, salt, and powdered sugar in a food processor. Important to sift the mixture.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the egg whites and powder until soft peak stage. Slowly add the vanilla sugar and continue beating until just before stiff peak stage.

Fold the dry ingredients into the egg white mixture in three stages.

This is the stage where coloring is added, if you want to.

Fold about 4 times, before cutting through the batter in the middle, and continue to fold .

Continue to fold until a ribbon forms.

Pipe onto parchment paper

and let it set for 30 to 60 minutes.

Once piped, it'd look glossy.... After letting it sit, this is how it should look: MATT

Preheat oven to 350F. Plce the cookies in the oven and lower the temperature to 300F. Bake for 15 minutes.

Let ie cool...

Remove cookies after 10 minutes of cooling.

On to the fillings...

Lemon Curd: ingredients: 3 eggs, 1/2 cup strained meyer lemon juice ( or use pomelo, blood orange), 1 stick butter, 1/4 cup sugar, 2 tnsp lemon zest.

Directions: Place a stockpot, 1/2 filled with water, on the heat  and bring to a simmer. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar and zest. Whisk in the lemon juice. Set the bowl above the pot and reduce the heat to a medium to continue to simmer. Stir the micture over heat until a thick custard is formed, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the butter until smooth. Chill to set.

For the Italian Raspberry buttercream, you can change up the variations by adding different dried fruits. For example, asian pear. The base ingredients are: 5 egg whites, pinch of salt, 1lb butter, cut into pieces, 1 cup sugar, and 1 tsp vanilla.

Place a medium saucepot filled 1/3 of the way with water and bring to a simmer. Place the sugar, salt, and egg whites in the bowl of stand mixer. Holding the bowl over the saucepot, whisk the mixture until it feels warm to the touch. Place the bowl on the stand mixer and beat with the whisk attachment until stiff peaks form. Once the bowl is cool to the touch, add the butter, small pieces at a time. Add in the vanilla. Switch to paddle attachment to smooth out the buttercream. Add in half cup of your choice of dried fruit, or 1/4 to 1/2 cup frozen fruit puree. 

Pictures with the instructors~Clemence and Hadley :)

~Enjoy~

Love, Cherry :)

P/s: more pictures can be found on this site:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=277643&id=731096610&l=100e215b66