Vanilla Rum Macarons

I had a rush to create some macarons after coming back from holiday in Italy. I found some goodies to bake and try out some flavour in Italian supermarket. I found some amazing rum and anise flavouring on the baking section with an amazing price! In France this kind of stuff are found mostly in specialty shop, especially if you're looking for unordinary flavour.

So I decided to try out some adventurous flavour. This time vanilla rum macarons.


FOR THE MACARON SHELL
1 room temperatured egg white(39-40g)
50g icing sugar
30g ground almond
30g castor sugar
1/2 teaspoon white metalic food colouring


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. 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 the metalic food colouring 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.




Vanilla Rum Ganache

Ingredients

50g white chocolate (chopped into small pieces)
10g liquid full cream
1 Vanilla (cut into half and remove the seeds inside - reserve the seeds - set aside)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract ( OR 1 teaspoon of vanilla flavouring )
1-2 drops of rum flavouring (the taste of rum can be very empowering, so please go easy with this)


Methods

1. In a small pot, pour in the liquid cream, add in the vanilla seed, warm it up lightly but do not boil it.

2. When the cream is warm enough pour over the chopped white chocolate.

3. Stir until you get a smooth consistent and all chocolate has dissolved.

4. Add in the vanilla aroma or extract .

5. Finally add in 1-2 drops of rum flavouring.

6. Stir and make sure the mixture is well mixed.

7. Fill your macaron immediately. Keep chill in an air tight container for up to 48 hours. Bring the macarons out of the fridge 20 mins prior serving for maximum taste! :) Enjoy