Macarons for the holidays

I almost forgot about my sweet macarons.  Between the sports treats and halloween goodies, they slipped off of my radar.

These little cuties are chocolate peppermint  macarons, featuring crushed peppermint candy on the top and chocolate buttercream in the center.  If you are a mint/chocolate fan *Isabelle,cough*, you would find these to be delightful.

I have a new secret method to making my macarons - sifting the almond meal.  Wow, what a difference that makes in terms of fewer bumps on the tops.  Hmmmm, I wonder if I was the only one who didn't know the secret.  Well, it's out of the bag now.

My second baking session is what I call the angel macaron.

This is a vanilla cookie with white food coloring added (to make it look more angelic) and vanilla buttercream tinted a gentle aqua blue.

I added matching blue pearl dragees to the tops.  I really wasn't sure how the dragees would do in the cooking process on such a light and delicate batter, and some of them did in fact sink into the top crust.  Overall, I was pleased with the look - very heavenly!

If you haven't given macarons a try, I would encourage you to give it a whirl (yes TRISH, I am speaking to you!).  The worst thing that can happen is they crack a bit on the top or don't have their "feet", but they will still be delicious and special and just the thing for a holiday gathering or tea party.

I am glad they are back on my radar!

Linking with
Pink Saturday
The Charm of Home
My Romantic Home
Feathered Nest Friday

Birthday plate of cookie love

This birthday love was for a friend of mine.  There are chocolate iced sugar cookies and mini macarons (I had a tough time making them little - got to work on this).  These little macaron treasures are filled with Swiss meringue buttercream laced with a touch of almond extract and chambord - a French black raspberry liquor.  To make them EXTRA special, they are topped with royal icing butterflies and flowers.  In the past I have made my butterflies with white chocolate because they are much sturdier, but I was feeling brave yesterday.  Only one broke, so it was a major victory.  The cookie message was:

Happy 50th birthday Nancy!  The party girl was resplendent last  night in a tiara complete with peacock feathers - why didn't I bring my camera? 

And as a side note, I am thoroughly opposed to flowers dyed funky colors like the ones I used.  You will hear me rant about poinsettias sprayed with blue and purple glitter this holiday season.  When I saw these babies at the store, I had a large internal battle. The color was SO PERFECT with the cookies.  In the end, the  turquoise colored daisies won and I loved them on the plate. 

Linking with:
Sweet Little Gals
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Sweet as Sugar
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Tidy Mom
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Savvy Southern Style
Night Owl Crafting
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Sweetology 101
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Dittle Dattle
Masterpiece Monday
The Tablescaper
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Thank you cookies

My Romantic HomeHow do you say

to some wonderful people?  If you are me, you make sugar cookies with chocolate royal icing.

People who do nice things for my children are special.

When I need to say thank you, I am happy for you, I am proud of you, I am thinking of you, and I love you, I seem to say it best with cookies. 

Hugs work well, too. 

And by the way, it is super easy to make chocolate icing.  I just add cocoa powder to the icing along with the brown food coloring.  The first time I made brown icing and it tasted vanilla, it really confused my brain - it did not compute at all.  I can't handle it without the cocoa powder...

So to these special friends, many thanks and love from Lisa and Isabelle!

Sharing my cookie love with
Savvy Southern Style
The Creative Spark
A Stroll Thru Life
Sweetology 101
Stone Gable
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Tatertots and Jello
Sweet as Sugar Cookies
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Tidy Mom
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No Minimalist Here
Carolyn's Homework
Between Naps on the Porch
My Romantic Home

More macarons

Now that I kind of have the hang of making them, I have a bad case of macaron-aholic-mania.  Yes, I made that word up.  These aqua cuties were for Drew and Genevieve.

It is so much fun to think up flavor combos and color the batter.  For these, I used a white chocolate base flavored with amaretto for the filling.  The almond flour pairs quite nicely with amaretto! 

On a recent trip to a mennonite store, I spied some pecan meal.  You know where this is going, right?  How about using pecan instead of almond flour in the macaron batter?  A couple of good reasons for this experiment - one, I like pecans more than almonds, two, it is LOTS cheaper, and three, I like breaking rules and not following recipes to the letter.

 Sad, but true.

So for this new cookie, I simply replaced the almond meal with pecan meal.  It behaved exactly the same in the baking process, and I loved the flavor.  Speaking of flavor, I decided to pair it with a brown sugar maple buttercream.  I do not measure when making icing but what I did was cream softened butter with brown sugar.  Then added pure maple syrup, some cream, and powdered sugar till I got a nice consistency. 

This is tasty.  Really tasty.  If you like maple syrup, pecan pie, or blondies, this is the macaron for you.  Or should I say pecaron, or macaran, or pecanaran? 

I like making up words AND recipes.  This could keep me busy for a long time...

Linking with

Tidy Mom

My Romantic Home

Today's Creative Blog

Sweetology 101

A Stroll Thru Life

French cookies part 4 Lavender vanilla bean macarons

BY JOVE I THINK I'VE GOT IT!

With trepidation, fear, and determination, I marched back into my kitchen and did battle with the macaron.  I aged,whipped, folded, piped, banged, dried, double panned, tossed salt over my shoulder, and prayed.  And it worked.

Insert sound of maniacal laughter. 

And now a few facts and tips.  I used the macaron recipe from Martha Stewart for Parisian macaron, and you can view it by clicking here.  Almond flour is called for in all macaron recipes, and in a fit of thriftiness I made my own by grinding up almonds in a food processor.  I didn't grind mine up finely enough because you can see little lumps in the cookie.  Next time, I either need to shell out money for the almond flour or go do a better job of pulverizing my almonds.  They still taste wonderful, but it does affect the smoothness of the tops. 

See what I'm talking about?  Now for the little tricks I used this time. 

1.  I aged my egg whites
2.  I banged the baking sheets a couple of times on the counter (scaring my dog) to help reduce air bubbles.
3.  After piping the batter onto the baking sheet, I let it dry to the touch - about 30 minutes.
4.  I used two baking sheets, one on top of the other for baking.

Not one cracked top, and they all had the desired little "feet".  That's me laughing maniaclly again.

And now, on to the filling.  A lot of macarons are filled with Swiss meringue buttercream, and that sounded like a very good plan to me.  Once again, I turn to Martha for the recipe.  For this somewhat time consuming but easy recipe for SMB click here.  The amount of butter is truly horrifying, but as I have said before, it makes quite a large batch and stores wonderfully in the fridge or freezer.  Just try not to think about it too much.

The filling is where my flavorings went.  I added a very small amount of culinary lavender and some vanilla bean.  Tinted a soft lavender color, it just looked beautiful.  A word of caution here:  use only the tiniest bit of lavender.  I added just a little too much and it was too strong. 

For me (and Tony) the chocolate champagne macarons were the best tasting, but these were the best looking.  Next time I make the chocolate ones, I will add some brown food coloring to the batter to give a nice rich color to the cookie. 

Tomorrow will conclude French cookie week with a visit from Marie Antoinette.  Until then, heureux Jeudi!

My link friends today are
Its a Keeper Thursday
House of Hepworths
Between Naps on the Porch
No Minimalist Here

 

French cookies part 2 chocolate champagne macarons

Hello from south central pennsylvania France!  I finally decided to tackle the confusing world of macarons.  Reading recipes and tips for creating this treat is truly headache worthy.  As you can see from the photo above, I didn't exactly achieve a smooth domed top.  In fact, they almost all cracked and maybe a total of two had the desired little feet. 

But here is the good news:  THE TASTE WAS FABULOUS!  Knock your socks off fabulous.  My non-sweet loving husband couldn't get enough of them fabulous.  They may not have been lookers, but the macaron was lightly crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.  And the combo of chocolate and champagne was beyond divine. 

I used Martha Stewart's recipe from here.  For the champagne filling I used a recipe from a wonderful blog I found called Melanger Baking.  You will notice that Martha and Melanger's are sheer perfection, and I hang my head in shame by comparison...

My adaption to Martha's was to add about 3 tbsp. of cocoa powder to the ground almonds.  For the champagne filling I used white chocolate chips - about 3/4 of a bag - to the heavy cream and champagne.  The champagne cuts the cloying sweetness of the white chocolate as well adding a beautiful flavor.  Oh yes, chocolate and champagne play very nicely together.

There are many tips - and some of them conflicting - on ways to make the perfect looking macaron.  Here's a few:
Age the eggs
Bang the uncooked macaron on the counter before baking
Start the oven at a higher temperature and reduce heat once they go in
Prop oven door open with a wooden spoon
Let macaron dry for anywhere from 15 minutes to one hour before baking
Use double baking sheets
Use insulated baking sheets

I confess - all I did was bang mine on the countertop.  Sigh.  Next round I will let them dry to the touch before baking.  Any other tips out there?

But in the end, my ugly ducklings were enjoyed with a glass of champagne in the garden.  Magnifique!

Link along with
Sweetology 101
A Stroll Thru Life