Macarons with Strawberry & Blueberry Cream

We bought some strawberries 2 days ago only to find 1/4 of it were going off after a day :( I quickly picked out the rest which were still fresh, and decided that I should make some macarons with it.

I love any type of berries, as I have some blueberries in the freezer, I combined it with strawberry to make the filling.

I tried out some new food colouring I bought few weeks back and I must say, I love love love those food colouring powder. They fate very little even after coming out from the oven.

The food colouring is called Rainbow Dust. I bought it from an online seller from eBay, I believed this is a UK products. They are mainly used for cake icing. But they work just fantastic for Macarons!






FOR THE MACARON SHELL
1 room temperatured egg white(39-40g)
50g icing sugar
30g ground almond
30g castor sugar
1/4 teaspoon burgundy food colouring
1/4 teaspoon red food colouring
1/4 teaspoon of iridescent white food colouring powder


Method:
1. Put ground almond and icing sugar in a food processor or a small blender. Blend them finely.

2. Sift the blended mixture and set aside

3. With an electric beater, Beat the egg white, start from low speed and increase slowly to maximum speed. Beat until frothy (you will see lots of fine bubbles)

4. Now it's the time to add in the castor sugar, add half of the sugar, continue to beat in maximum speed for around 2 minutes, add in the other half, continue until you get very stiff peak.

5. Mix the dry ingredients into the egg whites. This process is called Macaronage. Start folding with a rubber spatula. Mix just until you roughly incorporate the mixture.

6. In another bowl scoop out half of the batter. Add the red colouring powder. Continue to mix until you obtain a smooth lava flow batter. Do the same to the other half of the batter, only this time, add in burgundy food colouring.

7. When you get smooth shiny mixture, stop folding, lift the mixture with spatula, if the mixture falls back slowly in the bowl means you're good to go. You could also check if the lines formed from the lifted mixture, they should slowly disappear in within 30 seconds. At this stage you're good to go. Do not over fold, it will be too liquid and becoming very hard to pipe.
if you're unsure, you could refer to my basic macaron recipe as a guide HERE

8. I use 2 plastic freezer bags, fold them half on one point to get a triangular which will make a cone when open up. Staple along the side.
If you would like more details, here is the link to photo tuturial.

9. Fill one freezing bag with the red colour mixture, another one with the burgundy colour mixture.

10. Cut the bottom of each freezing bags

11. Put those 2 bags carefully in the piping bag , pipe your macaron (about 2 cm diameter) it should spread a bit as it settles. The point should slowly disappear if the mixture is the right consistency. If not you could hit the bottom of the tray with your hand to smooth the point. You should get macarons which are half violet, half pink

12. With a sift with fine holes, pour in the 1/4 teaspoon of iridescent white powder. Sift gently over the piped macarons




13. Let your macarons sit for about 30minutes. This will depend on the humidity in your house and the day. Try touching the macaron softly, after 30mins. it should not stick to your hand.

14. Heat your oven to 150 C on the (heating on the top only). When the oven is ready, put your macaron at the very bottom shelf. Bake for 12 minutes, check them in the mid time of 6 minutes, the feets should already start forming. Turn the baking tray to the opposite direction to allow even baking. When the 6 mins is up, change the heating setting of your oven to Bottom only. This will help cooking the macaron and rise the feet more. Bake for another 6 minutes. You can test if the macaron is cook, touch softly on the shell and when the macaron doesn't slide on the feet, it's cooked. if it's not add another 1 mins each time and check.

(This is the method i found the best that works for me after few trial and error. I baked with heating the oven top and bottom and i had crack macarons. Having said that, every oven is slightly different than another, so please adjust accordingly)


15. Let the macaron cool down before removing them. You could wet your working area and slide the baking sheet on it to speed up the cooling process, but do not let it sit there too long, if not the macarons will become soggy. Other wise you can leave them cool at room temperature and remove them.



For the Strawberry & Blueberry Cream Filling

Ingredients

40g fresh strawberry (mix in the blender)
40g blueberry (frozen or fresh)
1 gelatine sheets of 1 g
5g corn starch
1 egg
50g castor sugar
70g butter (cut into small pieces - room temperature)

Methods

1. Soak the gelatine sheet in a bowl of cold water for 10 minutes.

2. In a pot, add in the egg, castor sugar and corn starch, whisk gently.

3. In the same pot, add in the blueberry and blended strawberry.

4. Put the pot over the stove and heat it up with medium heat, and whisk continuously, cook this mixture until it boils lightly, it should thicken up a bit.

5. Remove from heat, add in the gelatine sheet. Make sure you press the water out from the gelatine very well before adding to the mixture.

6. Follow the gelatine, add in the soften butter, whisk with a hand whisk until well combine

7. Pour this mixture into a high mixing bowl. With a electric beater, mix for about 1 minute until you have a smooth, shiny cream.

8. Pour it in a wide bottom plate and keep chill in the fridge for minimum 2 hour.

9. Pipe the macarons when the cream is ready.


10. After finish piping all the macarons, pop them in an air tight container. Leave them in refrigerator overnight. You could keep the macarons up to 48 hours in the frige. if not consumed, freeze them up. Because after 48 hours they will lose the texture.