Pomme d'Amour White Chocolate Apple Shaped macaron

Hello guys,

Happy to show you guys that my hubby bought me a new toy as I am currently into baking bread - well since the organic toast price had gone sky rocket I figured that it's best to bake my own organic bread :)

So here it is the Kitchen Aid Artisan yay!!!
I got to make the meringue using it 2 days ago making this batch of macaron, I can see the different in the texture of the eggwhite, very airy and consistence - so love it!



Back to the first MacAttack in 2012 - had been wanting to experiment with different syrup, this particular one is called Pomme d'Amour. Pomme d'amour is actually a fresh apple being dipped into cooked sugar, so it has the glace look on it.

Photo credit : http://www.hum-gum.com/

Hope you guys like my Pomme d'Amour Macaron!!

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 paste red colouring
6. 1/4 tsp of yellow colouring




Methods:

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

2.Beat the egg white until frothy, add in half 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. Mix them up roughly but do not fold yet. Scoop half of the mixture into an extra bowl, add in yellow colouring fold it well until it flows like a thick ribbon when lifted. In the main bowl add in red colouring and 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.

6. Put a piece of baking sheet over a baking tray, fille the piping bag by alternating red and yellow mixture - meaning one scoop yellow one scoop red.

7. Pipe the mixture by making two slight diagonal lines to create the form of apple.


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.

13. Let macaron cooled before removing them from the baking sheet. You could speed up the process by lightly wetting your working area with a sponge and drag the baking sheets over.

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




For Pomme d'Amour White Chocolate Filling

Ingredients:

1. 50g High grade cooking white Chocolate
2. 20g fresh liquid cream
3. 10g Pomme d'Amour Syrup


Method

1. Put chocolate in a heatproof bowl and place it over water bath to melt it

2. In a small pot, over low heat, warm up liquid cream and syrup.

3. When the mixture is warm enough, remove from heat. Pour over chocolate and stir constantly until a smooth, shiny ganache is obtained

3. Let sit in room temperature for 30min and place into the fridge for at least 2 hour for it to harden up. Place a cling wrap on top touching the ganache prior putting it into the fridge to prevent any crystalisation on the chocolate ganache.

Happy 2012

Oh la la I can't believe how fast the past year had flown by !! And how slack I am for not getting on my blog for a few days !!

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a very HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012! May 2012 bring you plenty of joys, tenderness and wonderful moments!

I did manage to find some time to take some photos to show you guys what I offered for my family for xmas before they were all gone eaten :) Enjoy!






Some bunneh moments :)

Arlequin Macaron - 4 Coloured Macaron

Guess what made me so excited this week ? Holiday season ? Naa... I was looking and browsing at Blurb.com and suddenly somthing caught my eyes. It was my Macaron Fetish book being featured on the front page as Staff Pick !! I never thought this would happen heheh, just so so happy to see that.





So what's up in this cold and grey months of December? I had been thinking to experiment new macaron flavours with some French candies... Here's the first one - Arlenquin (for those who isn't familiar with the term, Arlequin is a Franch candy that is sour and fruity at the same time). I was itching to try out 4 coloured macaron shell as I wasn't suscessful on the first trial. Pair up with white chocolate the sourness and sweetness blended perfectly.








Hope you like the entry. Enjoy!

For the shell
1. 40g egg white
2. 30g almond powder
3. 50g icing sugar
4. 30g castor sugar
5. yellow, red, green, white colouring

1. Prepare4 freezer bags, 1 piping bag and 3 extra bowls. To see the illustration on how to prepare the freewer bags please follow the link .In a blender, mix up the almond powder and icing sugar, sieve it and set aside.

2. Beat the egg white until frothy, add in half of the 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. Mix until the mixture is roughly combien. Devide the mixture into the extra bowls. Add each food colouring in each bowl, start folding.

4. Keep folding until you get a mixture that flow slowly like lava. This should take about 50-60 folds. The mixture should be uniformed and shiny. When lifted, it should flow down and form a thick ribbon.

5. Pour each colour in each piping bag. Press down slightly to remove air. Snip off the tip of the begs before placing them carefully together in the piping bag. They might be needed to be adjust slightly so they are at the same level in the piping bag. Pipe the mixture.

6. Let the macaron sit until a shell is formed and it's no longer stick to the fingers when touched. Depending on your room temperature, and air humidity this should takes somewhere between 30 minutes to 1 hour.





7. Pre-heat the oven on 150 C with top and bottom heating.

8. When the oven is heated up, put in the piped macarons. Increase to 160 C after 2 minutes and continue baking for about 4-5 minutes, be sure to work with your oven and you might need a few test to know how much your oven heats up. The feet should already be forming after 4-5mins. Decrease the temperature to 150C, open the oven door quickly to allow hot air to escape. bake for another 6-8 minutes until the shells are baked.

9. To know if your macarons are baked, you could try it by gently touching the shells, when it's baked it should no longer slide against the feet.

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

11. Let macaron cooled before removing them from the baking sheet. You could speed up the process by lightly wetting your working area with a sponge and drag the baking sheets over.



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



Ingredients

1. 5 Arlequin candies
2. 1 tablespoon water
3. 50g white cooking chocolate
4. 20g fresh full cream

Methods

1. Crush the candies with a pestle and mortar.

2. In a small pot, melt the candies with some water. Watch closely so it doesn't burn.

3. When the candies are melted, add in fresh cream and warm it up.

4. Remove the cream from heat, pour over white chocolate, mix until the chocolate is melted completely and a smooth texture is obtain.

5. Let cool in room temperature and set in the fridge for about 1-2 hours, check back from time to time. The ganache should be soft but not runny.

6. Fill up the shells. The macarons are best eaten the next day.

Speculoos Macaron

Wohoo... follow by the macaron curse week, the Macaron God is with me this week YAY!!! Praise the Macaron Lord lol!

So what am I up to is baking up batches and batches of shells for some order for this weekend :) I have NO failed batches! I was surprised. Guess I am getting use to work with my oven baking few batches in continuous manner. My oven is one of those kind that heat up A LOT when it reaches its temperature. I guess letting some cold air and lower the temperature before putting in the next batch does help. I am glad that I find a way to work better.

I bought a second grill for the oven thinking i could do 2 batches in one go but it doesn't seem to work for those in the bottom rack, there is just not enough heat to rise the macarons on the bottom shelf. So I think I am going to bake them in chain and I could have better control over baking.

So what's up in Dec? Well the idea of making Speculoos macaron had lingering on my mind. My brother in law told me maybe some people would be interested. So I decided it's time to make some today. For those who doesn't know what Speculoos is, it's a Belgium cookies / biscuits made with butter, flour, brown sugar and cinnamon. In Belgium it's available in spread too, just like Nutella. Here we started to see them in fine grocer not long ago - the price tag is ahem... about 6 euros for a small pot.

Having eating much better and more careful of what we use since 2 years ago, I refused to buy industrially made biscuits or Speculoos spread that might be full of unknown preservative, coloring, sugar etc etc .. Before this I've only known store bought Speculoos, I made the biscuits then the spread, it was just delicious - definitely nothing like the sugary one from the store :)

Enjoy the baking! Don't worry it might seems like a lot of work but it wasn't that difficult :0)


For the biscuit (to obtain 50g biscuit)


1. 50 g flour
2. 30 g brown sugar
3. 25 g butter (or margarine)
4. 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon powder
5. pinch of baking soda
6. pinch of salt

1. Melt the butter.
2. In a mixer add in all ingredients above, pour in the melted butter and mix until it forms a smooth dough.
3. Form a ball, cover with a humid tea towel and let rest in the room temperature for 1 hour.
4. After an hour, preheat the oven to 190 C.
5. Flatten the dough to 3mm thick. Cut out with cookies cutter.
6. Put the cut out dough on a sheet of baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes.


For the Speculoos Spread


1. 50g of Speculoos (crushed into powdered form in a blender)
2. 20g honey (or aloe vera syrup)
3. 10g sugar
4. 30ml soy milk
5. 30g de good quality white chocolate (chopped finely)

1. In a small pot, heat up soymilk, sugar and honey but do not let it boil.
2. In a bowl, put powdered speculoors and chocolate together.
3. When the milk mixture is warm, pour in 1/3 of the mixture into the bowl, mix well, repeat until the mixture is used up and a smooth paste is form.
4. The mixture would be a bit liquid when warm but it will harden up slightly as it cools.
5. Pour in a jam pot, close the lid and let cool. Once cooled, place in the refrigerator.

For the shell
1. 40g egg white
2. 30g almond powder
3. 50g icing sugar
4. 30g castor sugar
5. 5g cacao powder (unsweetened)

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

2.Beat the egg white until frothy, add in half of the 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. Keep folding until you get a mixture that flow slowly like lava. This should take about 50 folds. The mixture should be uniformed and shiny. When lifted, it should flow down and form a thick ribbon.

5. Put a piece of baking sheet over a baking tray, pipe the mixture. Sprinkle some crushed biscuit over the shells


6. Let the macaron sit until a shell is formed and it's no longer stick to the fingers when touched. Depending on your room temperature, and air humidity this should takes somewhere between 30 minutes to 1 hour.

7. Pre-heat the oven on 150 C with top and bottom heating.

8. When the oven is heated up, put in the piped macarons. Increase to 160 C after 2 minutes and continue baking for about 4-5 minutes, be sure to work with your oven and you might need a few test to know how much your oven heats up. The feet should already be forming after 4-5mins. Decrease the temperature to 150C, open the oven door quickly to allow hot air to escape. bake for another 6-8 minutes until the shells are baked.

9. To know if your macarons are baked, you could try it by gently touching the shells, when it's baked it should no longer slide against the feet.

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

11. Let macaron cooled before removing them from the baking sheet. You could speed up the process by lightly wetting your working area with a sponge and drag the baking sheets over.

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