Friday, July 15, 2011

0 Chocolate Macarons!


making choolate macarons Part deux of Quel désastre MACARONS!

Granted the chocolate macarons look right.

And they taste GREAT! But (a BIG but) more later.

Let the suspense mount.
making choolate macarons

This time I got the measuring and mixing of the almond batter right (sort of).
Except I forgot to SIEVE the stuff - a NO NO. (I must buy a proper sieve) A la prochaine...


making choolate macarons The Macaronage I screwed up first go-round reached the 'MAGMA' (Tartelette's description) stage nicely I thought...
making choolate macarons First time macaronage was too liquidy...

making choolate macarons I used M. Mercotte's trick (Also Jill's) of using a clothes pin to close off the pastry bag tip to prevent leakage when filling with the 'magma'. (Watch her video in French - the Eng. one doesn't work - you'll get it anyway). And I found my lovely Parisian special scraper - it was stuck to the bottom of the almond flour bag in the fridge.


Go figure :)

making choolate macarons Rick asked, "Where is BEAR?"

making choolate macarons BEAR was busy testing out the 'skin' of the piped macs after 30 minutes.


Voila! Tout va bien.

making choolate macarons Inside the oven after 10 minutes = I got Feettttttttttt!


Yay

making choolate macarons *A neat trick I found in the comments of the recipe I followed in the Huffington Post for these chocolate macarons - put them onto a rack and stick inside the freezer for 5-10 minutes. They practically pop off the parchment paper! Yahoo.

making choolate macarons And look!


Beautiful flat bottoms and shiny tops!

I forgot to taste though...uh oh

making choolate macaronsRegarding the ganache filling. This I found the easiest step. I looked at a lot of recipes and then improvised.


Basic proportions: 1/3 cup boiled heavy cream to 1 bar of 3.50 gr of dark chocolate is standard, plus throw in 1 tbsp of softened UNsalted butter at the end for a glossy look. I used SALTED butter to cut the sweetness and extra lashings of salt + 1 lash of Ceylon cinnamon to give some mystery. I planned on using McCormick's Extract of Raspberry but when I saw the Red Dye #40 I got their Almond Extract instead. Also I used a bar of Perugina dark chocolate w/ almonds bar for more almondy hints. Once it's chopped up fine in the Cuisineart you won't bite on any chunks of almond - so not to worry. I would love to try an infusion next time...
making choolate macarons Looks good no? Tasted even better. By the way I softened the chopped up chocolate bar in the microwave at 20 second on low heat 5-6 x. Worked like a dream and less pots to clean. The ganache will easily resoften after taken out of the fridge and left at room temperature for a bit. Can I freeze it though? So much leftovers...


making choolate macarons Still looking very good and they taste yummy. I had 4 for breakfast, but...



I baked my meringue cookies TOO LONG!


25 minutes in MY oven is just too long and I forgot to taste them once they were cool :(


So in the end I made a really nice HARD cookie, but not a merinque.


Was it from overbaking?


Was it from overbeating?


Was it from NOT 'aging' the egg whites as some will tell you?


The mystery continues until I get back from Maine.


Will I solve this conundrum?
I must!


Remember there's still 5 pounds of almond flour in my fridge.


By the way I used Valrhona cocoa in with the almond flour and lashings of salt to cut the cookies sweetness. Je le deteste the overly sweet macarons I find here.


Just my 2 cents.


Stay tuned dear PBers and I LOVE all your helpful hints!


BONJOUR CHOCOLAT MACARONS!

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