Macaroons : French Method

Hello People!

Sorry for not updating lately. Been busy with the macs orders.

Yeah, I've been taking orders lately.

Took an official macaroons baking class from Big Boys Oven

Kinda felt like taking my macaroons to the next level :)

Okay so anyways, I wanna share this 

french method macaroon recipe with you guys.

I hope this helps.

By the way, I referred it from Joe Pastry.com .

Ingredients : 

108 g of almond finely ground

200 g icing sugar

100 g of aged egg whites

50 g caster sugar

Procedures:

1.Start by grinding your almonds and powdered sugar together in a food processor.

2.Next, prepare a pastry bag, fitting it with just the coupler, no tip. Stand it up in a tall glass for easy loading.

3.Now to make the batter. Put the egg whites in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a whip. This is a good point to add a few drops of coloring if you want to. Whip to about the soft peak stage. 

3.With the machine running, add the granulated sugar and whip to stiff peaks: the “bird’s beak” stage. Next just dump your almond/sugar mixture in.

4.Now, without regard to consequences, stir the mixture together. Don’t fold at this point — stir. Because remember, this isn’t spongecake. Part of the point is to break some of these bubbles. If the batter’s too light it’ll dry out in the oven and crack. That’ll let the steam out and bye bye feet. So don’t be delicate, stir for maybe 30 seconds. (Be sure to scrape the sides as you go). After 20 or more strokes, you want to start folding. Fold four or five times, then start testing the batter for readiness. 

How to do that? Why, with a spoon of course. You just scoop up a small portion of the batter and plop it onto a plate or sheet pan. What you’re after is a small mass that settles down into a nice disk after a few seconds, but with a subtle peak in the center.

5.If your batter mounds up too high, go back and fold a few more times. If you over-fold a little and the batter runs a bit, that won’t be the end of the world. Contrary to what you may have heard, a few extra strokes is unlikely to ruin your macarons. The biggest mistake most people make with macaron batter is that they baby it too much.Once you’ve arrived at the right texture, spoon the batter into your pastry bag, and start piping onto a parchment-lined sheet( I use a silicon paper from Bake With Yen Bakery Supplies). Tap the bottom of the baking sheet with your hands till the pointy tops become flat.

6.Let the macaroons rest for about 50 mins but if its raining you might have to wait a little longer.

7. Bake in your oven at 130 C for 20 mins ( this is depending on your oven so you might have to experiment a bit first). You macaroon's feet will appear after 10 mins or so.

8. After it is baked, take out the baking sheets from the oven and let it cool for 5 mins. The base of your macaroons should slip right off the baking sheets. If it doesn't then you might want to put it in the oven for another 5 mins or so.

9. Grab two macaroon shells and put your filling on 1 side and sandwich them together. Then tadaaaaaaa, the finished product :

Troubleshooting Macaroons!

Hello People!

Sorry for not being consistently posting about my baking,

caught up by a few catch-ups and what not :)

Anyways, so i've been thinking,

when u want to make macaroons

there are possibly a hundred different things that could go wrong

(okay, maybe i'm exaggerating!)

and you might want to know why it happened.

So i've made a little research, and here are the list of possible mishaps :

• Your macaroons have no feet. This is mainly because you didn't let it rest enough and the thin cap that was suppose to form on top of the macaroon didn't have time to form yet. Another possibility is that you over mix the batter. Most of the bubble needed to lift the cap have been popped out of the batter.
• Your feet protrude to the side. This may occur due to over-heat in the oven. Every oven is different on its own so you might want to adjust and see which temperature suits your batter batter best. When there is too much heat, the macaroons will expand quickly thus making the feet protrude sideways. You can also try to put a wooden spoon on the oven window, this create an even heat in the oven.       
• Your macaroons have large spaces under the cap. This happens when bubbles in the foam pop. Try cutting back on your resting time a little. Another tactic might be to add a bit more sugar to your batter to help shore up the bubble walls.  
• Your macaroons cracks. This is due to the effect of under-mixing your batter. The bubbles inside the batter is too much that instead of giving lift your macaroons, it pops thru the thin caps and make your macaroons crack. Another possible cause is due to excess moisture in the batter ex: the air is humid or the egg whites are big.Try using grade B eggs instead.

And some tips and tricks when doing your macaroons :

1. Use an oven thermometer: Chances are, your oven is different than mine, put down the few dollars it costs for a decent oven thermometer and you can know for certain that your oven temp is right.

2. Use a good baking sheet: If your baking sheet is too thin, the macarons won’t bake evenly or correctly. You can even try doubling up two thin baking sheets if that’s all you have.

3. Use old eggs: I know this may sound wrong in our world of refrigerating everything, but it makes a difference. Use eggs that are not too fresh and leave them on the counter at room temp for a day or two.

4. Make sure you have prime egg-whipping conditions. Trust me, a humid day or one streak of grease in your bowl can make what could have been a beautiful batch of macarons into a big disappointment.

5. Increase cooking time for bigger macarons: I’ve undercooked my macarons before and had them come out hollow. Pretty still but very disspointing in texture. Make sure that if your macarons are bigger circles, you bake longer.

6. Keep an eye on your macarons to avoid browning them or letting them crack:  If it seems a little hot, crack the door and stick a wooden spoon in to hold it slightly ajar.

7. If you macarons won’t unstick, try water. Rest the paper (with the Macarons stuck to it) on a thin layer of water. Count to 15 which is just enough to soften the paper without getting the Macarons wet. They pulled off flawlessly! You may have to adjust how long you let it sit depending on the type of paper you use, so as not to wet your Macaroons.

So far that's it peeps!

I'll let you know if i found out anything new :)

And i'll be posting a french macaroon recipe next.

It all started with....

Hello people! Salam 1 Ramadhan!

Ok so today I'll be sharing the first recipe that I use when I first started,
that is the macaroons!

Ok so maybe my macaroons didn't turn out like these,
but it's now almost perfect.
Did you know that if u buy it in the shops or bakeries,
they sell it for RM 2.50 per piece. PER PIECE!
Anyways, one day while watching my all-time-favourite series 'Gossip Girls',
one of the characters,
Blair Waldorf ate these beautiful and delicious looking cookies (like the above),
then me and my wifeys (our cool nicknames for me & my girlfriends)
were discussing on how we can find these beautiful macaroons.

One day, 1 of my wifeys, (yup! its u anis!), said she bought it at a shop called 'Whisk!' in the Empire Shopping Gallery, Subang. They cost about RM2+ for a small piece.
And when all of us finally tried it, it was heaven! and very2 sweet, mind you.
So me being a curious one, found the recipe of this french cookies,
and tried it!

and failed miserably!

No wonder it cost a lot! The ingredients are simple but if I use the method incorrectly,
my macaroons will be like the above. Fail.
I've tried it so many times it all end up like these.

Its not a disaster, it taste good, but it doesn't look at all presentable.

So after countless attempt of baking these cookies, inspired by Masterchef Australia ,
Tadaaaaaaa!

Perfect macaroons! :D


Ok so after all the ramblings, let me share with you the recipe that I used for this perfect chocolate Italian macaroons.

Ingredients:

160g of Almond meal

160g of Icing Sugar

160g of Granulated White Sugar

3 old Egg Whites (age it in the freezer)

1 teaspoon of chocolate food colouring

20g of water

20g of cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar

Chocolate ganache (for the filling)

Utensils:

1. Hand Mixer.

2. Pot.

3. Spatula.

4. Piping Bag (or you can also use a ziplock plastic bag and cut thebottom tip of the plastic).

5.Parchment paper.

6. Baking sheet. 

Procedures:

1. Preheat the oven to 130 degrees Celcius.

2.Sift the almond meal together with the icing sugar and cocoa. Mix in 1&1/2 of the old white eggs into the dry ingredients until they form a paste.

3. Put the granulated white sugar and water into a pot, then bring to a boil. When it has reach the boiling point, put in the chocolate food colouring.

4.While the sugar is boling, put the remaining old egg whites and the cream of tartar into a mixing bowl and with a hand mixer, mix the egg whites on medium speed until soft peaks form.

5. Remove the boiling sugar from the stove and pour into the mixing bowl in thin strips. Make sure you pour it slowly into the mixing bowl.

6. When the mixing bowl is cooled, stop the mixer.

7. Pour half of the meringue (egg whites) mixture into the almond-sugar paste and mix it to loosen the paste out. Then pour the remaining meringue mixture until the mixture forms a batter.

8. Put the macaroon batter inside the piping bag and pipe the batter onto a parchment paper according to the size that you want. Make sure you pipe the macaroons with the same size for easier assembling.

9. Tap the parchment paper on the table to let all the air bubbles out. Let it rest for 30 mins before you bake them in the oven for 15 mins.

10.When its done, put in on a cool rack to let it cool. Then assemble the macaroons like a burger with the ganache as the fillings. 

P/S: Sorry for the terms yeah! This what you get when you ask an Engineering student to write a recipe :D

Hello :)

Hello People!

Ok so this couple of months I have been baking like nobody's business. I'm so obsessed with it :D

It all started since the Personal Mastery course by YK. They told me to set a goal that i have to achieve in 3 months. I kinda failed at that since i have my finals, SUKSIS camp and then practicals.

So i decided to change the goal to achieving at least 6 recipes in 3 months.

I baked macaroons, molten lava cake, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate cupcakes, vanilla cupcakes, 

and last but not least, the red velvet cake.

Haha ok i cheated. Maybe i didnt really finish all that in 3 months 

but i really baked them.

And now i cant stop baking!

With the new oven my mum just bought, THANKS MAMA!,

I think I'm destined to bake.

Haha. Oh did I mention the oven was bigger. MUCH BIGGER than the old one.

Hee :D

And then I thought why don't I do it like Julia in the Julia & Julia movie and devote a blog on my cooking.

All my mistakes and mishaps of my cooking and maybe, just maybe somebody can actually refer to my blog when they bake :)

So in this blog, I will post my experience on my amateur journey of baking and maybe someday open my own little bakery.