100 Followers! Thank you

100 Followers Thank you all !

I just logged in to check on the blog and I could hardly believe my eyes when I see the follower column - there's 100 followers following my blog.

When I first created this blog just to have some fun, I didn't think that I'd have followers or so many people come to check out my blogs and share their thoughts.

To celebrate this I decide to post up a recipe that is on my next book for all my followers. I hope you guys will like it.

This is a savoury-sweet macaron which I named Blue - it's filled with French blue cheese (Roquefort) with a piece of sweet wine jelly inside.

Special thanks to my hubby who gets his hand dirty and made the cheese filling. I hate cheese (except for Mascarpone & Mozarella) - sorry cheese lovers - the thought of the smell of dairy turns my tummy, plus I can't digest them and if I abuse the dose - I ended up with tummy ache (in the case of eating tiramisu which I love) .

Whenever I touch a piece of butter, I'll go washing my hands frantically until the smell of the butter is gone (this happen well, when I make butter cream). Cheese is probably my worst enemy, in the sense of smell/texture/taste - so I can't really bare to touch a piece of cheese and have my fingers smelling like ermm.... feet. lol.

Those macs are for guinea pigs in my family - it was approved!

Nevertheless, to all the cheese lovers hope you guys enjoy it!


Enjoy!


For the shell

Ingredients

* 1 egg white (40g)
* 30g castor sugar

* 50g icing sugar
* 30g almond powder
(Blend together)

* few drops of liquid blue
food colouring
(or mix 1/4 teaspoon blue
food colouring powder with
few drops of water)

Methods:
1. In a blender, mix up the almond powder and icing sugar, sieve it and set aside

2. Using an electric beater, beat up the egg white till frothy, add in half of the castor sugar, keep beating till you get a soft peak and then add in the rest of the sugar. Beat to stiff peak.

3. Add the blended dry ingredients to the stiff egg white.

4. Add dry mixture to the stiffed egg white. Keep folding until you get a mixture that flow slowly like lava. This should take about 50 folds. The mixture should be uniformed, shiny and when lifted it should flow down and form a thick ribbon.

5. Stop folding or else it would get too liquid to pipe.

6. Put a piece of baking sheet over a baking tray, pipe the mixture.

7. Pipe the macaron in the form of rain drop shape - press the piping bag then release the pressure while dragging down to make a pointy end.

8. When all mixture is piped, using a small brush, dip into the food colouring then dip softly over the piped shells.

9. Let the macaron sit until a shell is formed and it's nolonger sticked to the fingers when touched. Depanding on your room temperature, and air humidity this should takes somewhere between 30 minutes to 1 hour.

10. Pre heat the oven on 160 C with only top heating.

11. When the oven is heated up, put in the piped macarons, bake for 8 mins, the feet should already start forming at this stage.

12. Change the heating to bottom only, bake for another 6 minutes. To know if your macarons are baked, you could try it by gently touching the shells, when it's baked it should nolonger slide against the feet.

13. If the macaron is not baked yet, extense the baking time by 1 minutes and recheck.

14. Let macaron cooled before removing them from the baking sheet.

15. Match up all the similar size shells, and get ready for filling.






For Blue Cheese Ganache

1. In a small pot add in wine and agar agar powder. Bring it to boil for 2 minutes while stirring constantly.



2. Pour over a flat plat, let it cool to room temperature before putting it in the fridge for it to set.

3. Crush the cheese in a small bowl. Add in the cream and continue crushing any small piece of cheese in the bowl until everything is well mixed.



4. Put the bowl with the mixture in the freezer for 2 minutes. Whip it up until the mixture reaches the consistence of whipped cream.



5. Cut wine agar agar jelly into small squares. Fill one macaron shell, add wine jelly on top, put pea size filling over and close with another shell. Put in the fridge.


6. They are best eaten within the next 4-6 hours as the filling tends to humidify the macaron shells if kept for too long.

Choco-Caramel Passion Fruit Jelly Macarons

Hello guys, I am finally back to France 2 weeks ago and was really eager to get back to the Mac Tweet Challenge... Bought so many exotic ingredients which I will definitely experiment it on my future macarons.

I am thinking of writing another book of macaron baking... what do you guys think ? I have been doing some brain storming for theme, ideas, flavours, designs etc. My husband is really excited about it as he said he wanna try to work on the filling and the flavour with me. That is great because I love baking macaron shells but is very reluctant to make the filling. Guess making the filling isn't half as exciting as seeing macaron's pretty feet grow.

Let's get back on the track - Mac Tweet challenge this month: Fruit! Yay, I love everything fruity, so I was so happy that I couldn't wait any longer to bake my macs and here I present you :

Choco-Caramel Passion Fruit Jelly Macarons


Inspired by many recipes from Pierre Herme, this recipe contains a jelly square with the chocolate ganache.

For the shell

Ingredients

1. 40g egg white
2. 30g almond powder
3. 50g icing sugar
4. 30g castor sugar
5. 1/2 tsp of purple colouring
6. 1/2 tsp of yellow colouring


Methods:
1. Prepare 2 freezer bag or a smaller piping bags. If using freezer bags, staple up one side, cut the end to make a piping bag. Also put aside a big piping bag with noozle in it.

2. In a blender, mix up the almond powder, food colouring and icing sugar, sieve it and set aside

3.beating till you get a soft peak and then add in the rest of the sugar. Beat to stiff peak.

4. Add the blended dry ingredients to the stiff egg white. Mix them up roughly but do not fold yet. Separate the mixture into 2 bowls, then put yellow colouring in one bowl and purple colouring in the other bowl. Start folding.

5. Keep folding until you get a mixture that flow slowly like lava. This should take about 50 folds. The mixture should be uniformed, shiny and when lifted it should flow down and form a thick ribbon.

5. If you need further illustration on baking dual colours macarons please refer to this post http://macaron-fetish.blogspot.com/2010/02/tri-colours-blueberry-white-chocolate.html

6. Fill each colour in each freezer bag, use a clothes clip to clip off the end so that the batter wouldn't leak while you fill the bag. When both bags are filled, put them into the big piping bag. Adjust accordingly so that 2 bags are more or less on the same level.

7. Put a piece of baking sheet over a baking tray, pipe the mixture.



8. Let the macaron sit until a shell is formed and it's nolonger sticked to the fingers when touched. Depanding on your room temperature, and air humidity this should takes somewhere between 30 minutes to 1 hour.

9. Pre heat the oven on 160 C with only top heating.

10. When the oven is heated up, put in the piped macarons, bake for 8 mins, the feet should already start forming at this stage.

11. Change the heating to bottom only, bake for another 6 minutes. To know if your macarons are baked, you could try it by gently touching the shells, when it's baked it should nolonger slide against the feet.

12. If the macaron shells are not well baked, extend the baking time by 1 minutes and recheck.

12. Let macaron cooled before removing them from the baking sheet.



13. Match up all the similar size shells, and get the ready for filling.






For Passion Fruit Jelly & Choco-Caramel Ganache Filling

Passion Fruit Jelly


Ingredients
1. 3 Passion fruits
2. 1/4 tsp of agar-agar powder
3. 3 tablespoon water

Methods:
1. Over a small pot with a sieve, scrap out the passion fruit pulp and put it straight on the sieve, press the pulp to extract the juice.

2. Add in the water, then the agar agar powder, stir, then bring it to boil over medium heat.

3. Stir constantly and watch closely so it wont BURN!! It's important to remove the pot from heat immediately once the juice starts to boil up.

4. On a glass/metal plat, pour over the mixture. Let cool in room temperature then put in the fridge to let it set.

5. It should take about 30mins to for the jelly to set. Cut it into rectangular stripes. If not use immediately, put it back in the fridge.


Choco-Caramel Ganache

Ingredients:

1. 50g Cooking Caramel Milk Chocolate (I use the new Nestle cooking chocalate in caramel flavour)
2. 40g fresh liquid cream


Method

1. In a small pot, over low heat, warm up liquid cream

2. When the mixture is warm enough, remove from heat. Add in chocolate and stir constantly until a smooth texture is obtained

3. Let sit in room temperature for 30min - 1 hour to cool down.




PUTTING IT TOGETHER:

Fill your one macaron shell with chocolate ganache, put one rectangular jelly on top the, on the other shell, pipe a pea size of choclate ganache on it, this help secure the shell to the jelly. Close it up and viola!

ENJOY :)

Salty Mint Choc' Macaron

Time flies and soon we're off for our wedding in my hometown Penang, Malaysia. I can't help but keep thinking the older we grow the faster time flies... Remembering we were planning and looking for venue, ideas for the wedding 2 years ago... and in less than 10 days the wedding is on!

Ok let's get to the topic. I have to admit that in the last few months I hadn't bake macaron that much. So here we go for this month Mac Attack - Chocolate Macaron with twists.

I recentlty had a chocolate with some fine salt - which inspired me : Salty Mint Choc' Macaron. I decided to make use of the pot of himalayan salt that is sitting in the cupboard for a while. Pairing up with fresh mint leaves from the garden... the combination is surprisingly devine :)

I will be back to participate another Mac Attack in July since I will spend the whole May in exotic Asia :)

I hope you'll enjoy this post. Please do not forget to check my new book in previous post.

Happy MacBaking




For the shell

Ingredients

1. 40g egg white
2. 30g almond powder
3. 50g icing sugar
4. 30g castor sugar
5. 1 tsp of mint green colouring


Methods:
1. In a blender, mix up the almond powder, food colouring and icing sugar, sieve it and set aside

2. Using an electric beater, beat up the egg white till frothy, add in half of the castor sugar, keep beating till you get a soft peak and then add in the rest of the sugar. Beat to stiff peak.

3. Add the blended dry ingredients to the stiff egg white.

4. Add dry mixture to the stiffed egg white. Keep folding until you get a mixture that flow slowly like lava. This should take about 50 folds. The mixture should be uniformed, shiny and when lifted it should flow down and form a thick ribbon.

5. Stop folding or else it would get too liquid to pipe.

6. Put a piece of baking sheet over a baking tray, pipe the mixture.

7. Let the macaron sit until a shell is formed and it's nolonger sticked to the fingers when touched. Depanding on your room temperature, and air humidity this should takes somewhere between 30 minutes to 1 hour.

8. Pre heat the oven on 160 C with only top heating.

9. When the oven is heated up, put in the piped macarons, bake for 8 mins, the feet should already start forming at this stage.

10. Change the heating to bottom only, bake for another 6 minutes. To know if your macarons are baked, you could try it by gently touching the shells, when it's baked it should nolonger slide against the feet.

11. If the macaron is not baked yet, extense the baking time by 1 minutes and recheck.

12. Let macaron cooled before removing them from the baking sheet.

13. Match up all the similar size shells, and get the ready for filling.





For Salty Mint Choc' Ganache

Ingredients

1. 50g dark chocolate (chopped up)
2. Few springs of mint Peppermint would be the best - use only the leaves
3. Himalayan salt / French sea salt "Fleur de Sel" - See note
4. 10g fresh liquid cream

NOTE: I use Himalayan salt, if not French sea salt can be use, I dont think this is the right translation annd do not think this term exist in english. Fleur de sel, literally translate as flower of salt, it's a very fine salt that is retrieved on the surface of sea water when they're concentrated.


Method

1. In a small pot, over low heat, warm up liquid cream

2. When the mixture is warm enough, remove from heat. Add in dark and stir constantly until a smooth texture is obtained

3. Let sit in room temperature for 30min - 1 hour to cool down.

4. Fill your one macaron shell, sprinkle salt over the chocolate, press a mint leaf on top, on the shell, pipe a pea size of choclate ganache on it, this help secure the shell to the mint leaf.

ENJOY :)

Sweet, Spicy and Fruity - Swirly Strawberry Macarons with Green Anis

Oh gosh, it has been so long since I last participated in the MACTWEET challange! I am back. Still going crazy with all the last bits and pieces for the wedding...however I managed to find sometime last week to finally bake some macarons :0)

Spiced & Sweet with anything Fruity is the theme for this month challange, with fresh strawberries everywhere in the season now, I thought it would be great as the filling.

On the spicy side, i am not keen on any other spices that would be too overwhelming. I decided to choose green anis.

Here we go the recipe


For the shell

Ingredients

1. 40g egg white
2. 30g almond powder
3. 50g icing sugar
4. 30g castor sugar
5. 1/2 tsp of red colouring


Methods:
1. In a blender, mix up the almond powder with icing sugar, sieve it and set aside

2. Using an electric beater, beat up the egg white till frothy, add in half of the castor sugar, keep beating till you get a soft peak and then add in the rest of the sugar. Beat to stiff peak.

3. Add the blended dry ingredients to the stiff egg white.

4. Gently give it a few fold, scoop up on tablespoon of the mixture into an extra clean bowl.

5. At this stage, add in the red colouring, keep folding until you get a mixture that flow slowly like lava. This should take about 50 fold. The mixture should be uniformed, shiny and when lifted it should flow down and form a thick ribbon.

6. Stop folding or else it would get too liquid to pipe.

7. Put a piece of baking sheet over a baking tray, pipe the mixture.

8. When you're done, to make some pretty swirl on the shells, use a toothpick, dip into the plain white mixture that was set aside earlier, and then dip it into the piped shell then make a stir. The point or any lines would disapper in the next few seconds eventually.

9. Let the macaron sit until a shell is formed and it's nolonger sticked to the fingers when touched. Depanding on your room temperature, and air humidity this should takes somewhere between 30 minutes to 1 hour.

10. Pre heat the oven on 160 C with only top heating.

11. When the oven is heated up, put in the piped macarons, bake for 8 mins, the feet should already start forming at this stage.

12. Change the heating to bottom only, bake for another 6 minutes. To know if your macarons are baked, you could try it by gently touching the shells, when it's baked it should nolonger slide against the feet.

13. If the macaron is not baked yet, extense the baking time by 1 minutes and recheck.

14. Let macaron cooled before removing them from the baking sheet.

15. Match up all the similar size shells, and get the ready for filling.



For the Strawberry Spiced Ganache

Ingredients

1. 20g dark chocolate (chopped up)
2. 40g white chocolate (chopped up)
3. 1 teaspoon of green anis powder
4. 3-4 strawberries halved
5. 1 teaspoon corn starch

Method

1. In a small pot, over low heat, add in strawwberries & corn starch, cook them thouroughly until it forms like a puree and thicken up

2. When the mixture is warm enough, remove from heat. Add in dark and white chocolate and stir constantly until a smooth texture is obtained

3. Let sit in room temperature for 30min - 1 hour to cool down.

4. Fill your macaron shells and sprinkle with green anis powder before closing it with another shell

Enjoy :0)