Bucket list: Macarons

Strike one off the bucket list: French Macarons

 

 

 

Updated May 2016.

Do you have a cooking bucket list? I’ve had an informal (read: in my head) bucket list for quite some time; on it you’ll find duck, szalonczukor (a Hungarian fondant candy), spun sugar, puff pastry, phyllo pastry and last but not least, French Macarons! This post is about Macarons.

I was first introduced to these French Macarons a few years ago, a friend had brought a few back for me from Ladurée in Paris. My first bite experience was INCREDIBLE: crunchy, airy, lightly sweet, slightly chewy, fragrant, creamy, buttery. It was an awakening! It’s what you Aussie’s would call moreish and I would even go further to say needish, wantish, must-haveish!

The flavour combinations are limitless and I’ve even seen some savoury versions floating about the web-o-sphere (I must admit, a savoury version makes me cringe a bit). Today, I will share with you my second attempt recipe even though my first version turned out wonderfully, they were rather irregular in size and therefore not blog worthy. I used a Martha Stewart recipe for the meringue bit and a standard custard-based butter cream for the filling. The flavours I chose were: attempt 1 was lemon, attempt 2 were ice wine and pomegranate, chocolate and hazelnut. All were really delicious but my favourite was the lemon.

I will begin by saying that making Macarons are not as difficult as you might think; you need patience, a little know how and perseverance. The ingredients are simple and few. It makes me wonder why they charge so much for them, it must be the pomp and circumstance because it isn’t the cost of ingredients!

This blog post is an excellent reference; the professional baker did all the time-consuming comparisons and experimentation and documented it. My advice: Go with confidence and you WILL rock the recipe.

Macarons

Original Martha Stewart recipe can be found here.

Ingredients for basic Macaron:

• 35 g blanched almond meal or flour
• 58 g icing sugar
• 1 large egg white, room temperature
• 25 g granulated sugar
• 1/4 tsp gel food colouring (I used Christmas red)

Ingredients for Favoured Macarons:

• 35 g blanched almond meal or flour
• 53 g icing sugar
• 5 g flavour such as unsweetened cocoa powder (sifted) or espresso powder
• 1 large egg white, room temperature
• 25 g granulated sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F (177° C). Place the rack in lower part of the oven.
2. Prepare your macaron template using your computer to draw 2.5 cm or 1″ circles about 2.5cm or 1″ apart. Print two sheets. Put the two sheets under your UNSTICK™ baking sheet liner to use as your circle templates.
   

   This is the circle template under the UNSTICK liner.

3. In a coffee grinder, grind the almond flour in batches to a fine consistency (being careful not to make paste (marzipan) out of it). Omit if you can purchase extra finely ground almond flour.
4. Transfer ground almonds to a food processor and add the icing sugar; process until combined, about 1 minute.
5. Press the almond/sugar mixture through a fine-mesh sieve to remove the larger bits. You should have no more than 1 tbsp left, if you do, grind in coffee grinder again and press through fine sieve until you have no more than 1 tbsp left (save larger almond bits for something else).
6. Whisk egg whites and granulated sugar by hand to combine. Then beat on medium speed (#4 on a KitchenAid) for about 2 minutes, then increase speed to medium-high (#6) and beat 2 additional minutes. Then beat on high (#8) for 2 minutes more. The beaten egg whites will hold very stiff, glossy peaks when you lift the whisk out of the bowl. DO NOT OVER WHIP.
7. Add your choice of flavourings and food colourings and beat on the highest speed for about 1 minute. Just a drop if using flavouring or colour.
8. Then add dry ingredients ALL at ONCE (yes, I know many recipes say to fold in gingerly, but you really don’t have to), then fold with a spatula from bottom of bowl upward and end by pressing the flat side of the spatula firmly through centre of mixture. Repeat this process until all of the almond/sugar mixture has been incorporated and the ‘batter’ flows like lava (I counted about 35 complete strokes).
9. Prepare you pastry bag fitted with a 1 cm or 3/8″ round tip. Transfer the batter to the pastry bag.
10. Begin piping the batter onto the prepared UNSTICK™ baking sheet liner directly over the circles you’ve previously prepared. I found starting at the outer edge and piping into the centre to the easiest way to keep the Macarons uniform, repeat until you’ve used up your batter. Martha suggests you pipe about 1 cm or 1/2″ above the pan, whatever you do, you must be consistent to keep the batter even (so your circles are all the same size). Gently slide out the template paper from beneath the UNSTICK™ baking sheet liner.
11. Allow the pan to rest for 15 minutes, by doing this you give the peaks time to even out so your Macarons are beautiful and flat on top. Some suggest that you gently bang the pan a few time to remove air bubbles, I found I didn’t have many bubbles.
12. Bake each sheet separately for 13 minutes, rotating halfway through if your oven doesn’t bake evenly. Gently slide the liner off the baking sheet and allow to cool for a couple of minutes. The UNSTICK™ baking sheet liner allows you to  pry off each macaron half easily onto a cooling rack and allow to cool completely. You may freeze the Macaron halves at this point in a well sealed, air-tight container.
13. Prepare your butter cream.

Great flavours to make macarons with.

Basic Butter Cream Recipe:

Ingredients:

1. • 3 egg yolks
   • 35 g granulated sugar
   • 3 1/2 tablespoons milk
   • 105 g unsalted butter, softened
   • 62 g icing sugar

Ingredients for Ice Wine and Pomegranate Butter Cream:

1. • 5 g ice wine syrup
   • 1 g pomegranate molasses
   • 2 drops generic red icing colour

Ingredients for Chocolate Hazelnut Butter Cream:

1. • 2 tbsp Nutella or hazelnut chocolate spread

Directions:

1. In a small saucepan, combine the egg yolks, milk and granulated sugar and whisk. Cook over medium heat until the egg thickens to coat the back of a spoon (like pudding). Remove from heat and allow to cool COMPLETELY.
2. When cool, beat the butter with the icing sugar until light and fluffy and add the cooked egg mixture and beat on high until very fluffy.
3. To make two flavours, divide the buttercream in half (roughly) and to each half add the flavourings.
4. Pair each Macaron half to a half that is more or less is the same size and shape, set aside.
5. Onto one-half of each Macaron pair, pipe the buttercream but not to the edge. Take the other half and gently squeeze the to side together so the buttercream squishes almost to the edge. Set aside. When you have filled all the halves, set on a clean baking sheet and refrigerate until buttercream is set. Store in an air-tight container on their sides until ready to serve. Allow to come to room temperature before serving.

A few notes:

1. • I prefer weight measures over volume because it’s more accurate.
   • I ground my almonds in a coffee grinder because it results in a finer grind and apparently the grind is very important. Update May 2016: a fine grind almond meal is now available at my Bulk Barn so I no longer require to grind it in the coffee grinder.
   • I used Wilton’s paste food colouring for the ice wine Macaron cookies.
   • I ruined a batch using the convection setting in my oven; they didn’t spread nor did they rise or develop feet.
   • Over the years, I have made quite a few batches of these treats (the latest May 2016 was 146 macarons for our anniversary party). Two observations: Do not over beat the egg whites or they will not form feat and they will crack. Also, I found that they will crack if you do not fold the almond meal into the egg whites enough, the batter really needs to behave like lava, a slow moving thick batter.
   • Update May 5, 2016: I have also used this recipe from the very lovely Lorraine over at Not Quite Nigella and it is excellent. Her recipe makes 461 g of buttercream and by my estimation, each macaron takes about 14 g of buttercream (or if you make small macarons, only about 7 g of buttercream).

Tender, delicious, delicate cookies

Betcha can’t eat just one!

Yes, I did get carried away with the photos!

For my first attempt, I didn’t grind the almonds quite fine enough and that’s why the macaron is not smooth.

This is my first attempt, it’s lemon flavoured.

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Vadas Marhahus; Hungarian Wild Meat revisited

Last fall we had my lovely niece and her beaux for the weekend; Laura recently graduated from Western University with her degree in Law and she is articling in Toronto. I wanted to make a traditional Hungarian dinner because they had never had Hungarian food. I had intended to follow the recipe verbatim, but I just couldn’t help myself and did end up changing it a slight bit. The result was wonderful and JT thought I finally got it right, the way he remembered my dear Mom to make this tasty dish. The original recipe is from Ilona Horváth’s “The Traditional Hungarian Kitchen” cookbook, published originally in 1996.

Although this recipe takes 2-3 days to prepare, there is little kitchen time as most of it is in the marinade. The finishing is relatively easy. The original recipe was made entirely in a dutch oven but I’ve modified it to a slow cooker because I was not able to be at home the day we wanted to have it. The gravy is a tangy, creamy gravy balanced with the addition of caramelized sugar, but it is NOT SWEET. The julienned carrots and parsnips add texture and natural sweetness. The meat comes out fork tender and you really don’t even need a knife to eat it.

The tangy gravy goes perfectly with the sweet carrots and parsnips. Sorry the photo is so hot, it was night when I shot this.

Vadas Hus; Hungarian Wild Meat revisited

Serves 4-6. This recipe takes 2-3 days to prepare.

Ingredients:

• 800 g (1 3/4lb) eye of round or good stewing beef, whole
• 50 g  bacon (pancetta works)
• 2 tbsp canola oil (the Hungarians would use lard here)
• 2 tbsp all purpose flour
• 10 g (scant tablespoon) sugar
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 2 tsp dijon mustard
• 3/4 Non-fat Greek yogurt (or sour cream)
• 100 g (about 1 cup) julienned carrots
• 100 g (about 1 cup) julienned parsnips
• 1-2 tbsp cold water

Ingredients for the marinade:

• 50 g (about 1/2 cup) grated carrots
• 50 g (about 1/2 cup) grated parsnips
• 1 small onion chopped roughly
• 1 L  (about 4 cups) water
• 5-6 black peppercorns
• 2 bay leaves
• salt to taste
• 2 tsp white vinegar

Directions:

1. Tidy up the meat by removing any excess fat and membranes. Allow to come to room temperature.
2. To prepare the marinade, cook the carrots, parsnips and onion in 1 L water with black pepper, bay leaves and salt until half cooked. Add the vinegar and cool to room temperature. Pour over the meat and refrigerate 2-3 days turning every so often. Remove the black peppercorns.
3. Remove the meat from the marinade and dry completely, bring to room temperature. In a large dutch oven, heat the canola oil and cook the bacon and reserve, add the meat  to the bacon oil and sear each side well.
4. In the meantime, pre heat the slow cooker on high and add the original marinade, reserved bacon and bay leaves. Once it is warm add the seared beef and cook until beef is tender (3-4 hours) turning often.
5. Remove the meat from the slow cooker and allow to rest. Discard the bay leaves. Strain the vegetables from the slow cooker (reserve the liquid) and add to the dutch oven, sprinkle with flour and fry to brown lightly. Slowly add the reserved marinade liquid and stir to thicken.
6. In a small sauce pan, melt the sugar until it is golden in colour (not dark) and then mix with a couple of tablespoons of cold water, pour into the thickened vegetables in the dutch oven. Simmer for 5 minutes and add the remaining 2 tsp vinegar and Dijon mustard. Purée the entire gravy adding the yogurt or sour cream with an immersion blender until very smooth. You can run this through a fine sieve for a very smooth gravy. Keep warm.
7. Boil the remaining julienned carrots and parsnips until cooked but there is still a slight bite to them. Strain and keep warm.
8. Slice the meat into 1 cm or 1/2″ slices and plate over the puréed gravy, top with the julienne parsnips and carrots. Garnish with flat leaf parsley.
9. Serve with Hungarian Bread Dumplings.

JT loves it when I pan sear the gombocz in butter and it becomes crispy and delicious!

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Halibut with a Rustic Tomato Sauce

It’s a week night and even though we like to eat at 7:30-8 on weekends, it just doesn’t work for week nights when I need a couple of hours to blog, and such! I’m always looking for tasty and quick ways to serve fish and Kristy’s delightful Baked Cod Portuguese was a sure winner, but I didn’t have the fire roasted tomatoes, nor the time to make them, so I took her recipe as inspiration. This one is quite low calorie, no butter or olive oil.

An incredibly filling meal

Makes 3 servings (100g each fish and 200g tomato sauce and greens)

Ingredients:

• 300 g Halibut
• 300 g cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
• 90 g vidalia onion and garlic (the ratio is entirely up to you, I had about 80g onion, 10g garlic)
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• salt to taste
• non-stick cooking spray
• 300 g mixed greens, including cucumber and green onions
• 3 tbsp chopped fresh flat leaf parsley

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly spray a cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray. Distribute the tomatoes, onion and garlic on the pan evenly. Salt.
2. Bake for about 30 minutes. Pour the contents into your immersion blender jar and blend until smooth. Add the smoked paprika and blend again. Keep the oven on.
3. Strain through a fine sieve, discard what is left in the sieve.
4. In a cast iron pan, sear the fish skin side on high heat for about 4 minutes. Pour the rustic tomato sauce over the hot fish and bake in the hot oven for about 15 minutes (this depends entirely how thick your fish is).
5. Meanwhile, create a fresh green salad (about 100 g each serving) with the mixed greens (we used spinach and baby arugula), cucumber and green onion.
6. When the fish is cooked through, remove the skin and place 100 g onto each bed of greens. Add about one third of the sauce to each plate. Garnish with parsley.

The sauce was lovely, not too acidic (I didn’t add sugar because I am no carbing for three weeks!) but you certainly can to taste. And the garlic really added a wonderful nutty flavour of a baked clove. I will definitely make this sauce again, perhaps with chicken or left over turkey, but then I would add chili pepper flakes to heat it up.

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The best ever Hungarian Cheese Sticks (sajtos rud)

Hungarian Cheese Sticks (Sajtos Rud) – this recipe came from my Aunt Agi in Budapest. I have done my best to convert to imperial measures, but to be sure, you should use the metric. Added note, I have successfully made these several times using imperial measures…so go for it!

Hungarian Cheese Sticks (Sajos Rud)

• 300g (about 2 cups) all purpose flour
• 150g (1/2 cup) margarine/sweet butter
• 1 tbsp fast rising yeast (bread machine yeast works)
• Sour cream as necessary for kneeding (I generally need about 2 tbsp)
• 100g (1 cup) shredded cheese (sharp cheddar works well, freshly grated Parmesan is best)
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 20g (1/2 cup) shredded cheese
• 1 egg yolk

1. Dissolve yeast in 1/2 cup warm water + 1 tsp sugar
2. In a pastry blender or food processor with plastic blades blend flour, margarine, yeast, cheese and salt and pepper until a smooth ball forms, adding sour cream as necessary.
3. Let rest in a warm dark place for 1 hour.
4. Preheat oven to 375F
5. On a piece of parchment paper, roll out dough to about 1/2 cm (~1/4 inch) thickness.
6. Cut into 7-10 cm (3-4″) x 2 cm (1/2 inch) sticks.
7. Lightly beat the egg yolk and brush tops of sticks.
8. Sprinkle with remaining cheese.
9. Let rest 10 minutes.
10. Slide cheese sticks on parchment paper onto a cookie sheet. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until cheese is golden brown.
11. Re-cut sticks, if necessary, while still warm. Allow to cool.
12. Enjoy!

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