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)

Macaron Fetish Book is out, now available to be ordered

I'd like say thank you my fellow followers on my blog. When I first created this blog, I had never imagined that it would draw in people around the world :) I am really glad that I have this opportunity to share the recipes and methods, internet is really an amazing discovery!

Please feel free to have a look and the preview of some pages of the book. This book contains 40 pages and is fully coloured. If you have any questions please feel free to ask :)

Thank you again
Kim

Macaron Fetish by Kim Chodkowski

Update

Hello

It has been a while since I posted something. Just so much to do in preparing the coming wedding and trip to Malaysia in May.

I had been working on my very first macaron book. It will be available soon after I receive my proof copy :) so please stay tune

This is a teaser of what to come

Festive Choco-Spiced Macaron to celebrate the end of 2010!

2010 came and going to end so soon.

I could hardly make myself believe that 2010 is really going to end in 2 weeks time!! 2010 was a year that I had always looked forward to for our honeymoon in last September. Time passes so fast and everything arrived and finished in a blink.

2010 has been a memorable year for me. We brought home 2 rabbits earlier in the year - Myrtille and Réglisse (Blueberry & Licorice). They had brought us so much and by observing them we learn a lot. They also had opened my heart and eyes in a new window. I was always preferred to ignore or deny, well should I say, wasn't even awared of animal cruelty in everything I use in daily life. I am now a lot more concious about this issue and make my choice when doing my shopping very carefully.

Our honeymoon in Australia also brought me many great precious memories that I will cherish for the rest of my life : Cuddling up an orphan baby wombat, being in complete wilderness with only sound of the ocean, watching stars in southern sky with plenty of wild wallabies eating next to us....

2010 is definitely a year when my life goes into a whole new dimension. Oh well, it's soon time to say good bye to 2010, so let's do that by celebrating it!!

Enough story telling and now straight to the macs. they're inspired by the end of year 'Pain d'Epice' (spiced bread) for Festival of St Nicolas celebrated in north part of France & Europe in 6 Dec everywhere.

The savour of the chocolate : hint of cinnamon & orange zest, top up with candied nutmeg that I brought back from Malaysia. I hope you'll like it.

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I won't repeat the recipe for the shells in this post since the method is always them same. The only difference is that I painted them with help of a pre-cut shape paper when the macarons are baked.

For the Choco Spiced Ganache

Ingredients

1. 50g dark chocolate (chopped up)

2. 1 teaspoon of cinnamon powder
3. 2 tablespoon of fresh cream

4. enough candied nutmeg (I use 2 small pcs for each macs)

5. shaved organic orange zest (please use ONLY untreated orange as most fruits skin are sprayed with pesticide)

Method

1. In a small pot, over low heat, add in cinnamon, orange zest & cream, warm up the mixture up lightly

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.

4. Fill your macaron shells and top up with candied nutmeg before closing it with another shell

Enjoy your festive macs!

I'd like to take this opportunity to thanks every followers in my blog and all others that spend time to visit my blog. Special thanks to MacTweets for making baking macarons so much fun every month!!!

Have a Merry Xmas and wonderful New Year!! See you all in 2011

Coco-Passion Fruit Macaron

Hello all,

First of all if you have been following my blog, sorry for not posting anything for a while, and thank you all so much for your kind comments and supports.

It has been few weeks since I am back from our honeymoon trip to the DownUnder and Malaysia. I have been procastinating many things since I was back. Firstly I am really tired from the jetleg, secondly, my head was so full with preparing another wedding in Malaysia next year.

So anyhow, I am back. Back to the MACTWEETS Challange. Theme this month - Autumn.

Well it feels almost like winter now = we're forcasting snow in North East of France in coming days!

I hope that you enjoy your autumn and this entry :)



FOR THE MACARON SHELL
1 room temperatured egg white(39-40g)
50g icing sugar
30g ground almond
30g castor sugar
1/4 teaspoon of yellow colouring powder + 1/2 teaspoon of white metallic 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 roughly combine.

6. Scoop out a spoonful of macaron mixture into a small bowl, add in red colouring, fold till mix. Set aside

7. Continue to mix the white mixture until you obtain a smooth lava flow batter.

8. 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


9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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. Reduce heat to 130 C. This will help cooking the macaron and rise the feet more. Bake for another 6 8 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.
Bewared that white colour macarons turn 'brown' easily, if doubt the oven is too hot, reduce the heat and prolong the cooking time by minute.

(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)


13. Let the macaron cool down. Mean while preparing your food colouring. Mix both colours together in a small bowl with a fod painting brush. Drip 1-2 drops of water and mix well. (Beware do not mix it too wet, if not it will humidify your macaron shells and they might break)

14. Paint top of the macaron with the brush. If the mixture is too wet, add more colouring, if too dry, add 1 drop of water each time)

Funny bottom, they're shiny as a result of using silicone sheet (this was the first time I used it)

15. Make sure your macarons are completely cooled 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 Coco-Passion Fruit Ganache

Ingredients

1. 60g white chocolate
2. 2 tablespoon of dried shreded coconut
3. 2 passionfruits
4. 1 teaspoon of fresh cream


Methods

1. Empty the passion fruits and put the fruit pulps in a blender. Blend it up until you get a smooth fruit jus.

2. Pass the jus through the sift to remove any seeds and impurities.

3. Chop the white chocolate coarsely.

4. Adding the fresh cream in the pot, along with the passion fruit jus. Warm it up over low heat.

5. When the jus is warm enough, add in the white chocolate, mix until it's melted and a smooth texture is obtained. Remove from heat and finally add in the shreded coconut and mix well.

6. Let cool completely before ganishing your macaron shells

7. 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 fridge. if not consumed, freeze them up. Because after 48 hours they will lose the texture.

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