Blue Fairy Macaron (Rose Bubble Wine & Candied Pansy Butter Cream Macaron)

This month the MacAttack theme is about storybook of childhood. It makes me remember one of my favourite fairy tale - Pinocchio and the Blue Fairy that makes him a boy.

I started to think of what I could made out of this sweet fairy tale. I was sure of something blue and sparkly, but I would also like to add some bubbly touch to it.

That's how I came out with the Rose Wine butter cream with candied Pansy inside. I thought about champagne but I decided that it might be a bit wasted to use a bottle of champagne. Instead I used a bottle of bubble rose wine.



FOR THE MACARON SHELL
1 room temperatured egg white(39-40g)
50g icing sugar
30g ground almond
30g castor sugar
1/2 teaspoon Metallic blue food colouring
1/4 teaspoon Metallic blue food colouring (set aside to be sifted on top of the shell)


Method:
1. Put ground almond, food colouring 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. Continue to mix until you obtain a smooth lava flow batter.

6. 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

7. Pipe the macaron on a baking sheet over baking tray. Hit the bottom of the baking tray with your hand to flatted out the macarons slightly.


8. Sift metallic food colouring powder over the shells.




9. 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.

10. 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)


11. 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.




Rose Bubble Wine & Candied Pansy Butter Cream

If you couldn't find any rose / pink bubble, a normal yellow one would do just fine.

Ingredients

1 egg white
2.5 tablespoon of bubble wine
110g butter (cut into small cube ~ 5 cm - room temperature)
70g sugar
2 candied pansy (break into small pieces)


Methods

1. In a medium pot, fill up 3/4 of the pot with water. Bring to boil lightly

2. While the water is boiling up, hand whisk egg white in a heat proof mixing bowl until foamy.

3. Add in the sugar, when the water in the pot is warm enough, place the mixing bowl over the pot.

4. Continue to stir and hand whisk the mixture until the mixture becomes piping hot and all sugar has dissolved.

5. With electric beater, on high heat, beat the mixture until it starts to cool down.

6. Add in one cube of butter to the mixture, then beat with the electric beater until it's well corporate. Incorporate well after each addition.

7. With a rubber spatula, fold in the bubble wine and candied pansy.

8. Put in the fridge for about 2 hours until the butter cream is harden up a bit.

9. When the butter cream is ready, fill a piping bag, and pipe over one shell of macaron. Cover with another.


10. Take them out of the fridge 20 mins prior eating.Enjoy!