Happy Easter Macarons

The month of March has certainly been soooo crazy and I didn't feel that I had done anything much except many trips to the vet.

One of my bunny old papy Nestor had a very nasty eye infection. he had always have runny left eye and this time the vet recommended an x-ray to make sure there is no teeth problem that cause the runny eye. Everything came out perfect so they did a culture test on his pus. While waiting for the result, Nestor's eye got worst and an ulcer was developed in his cornea. He was in pain and thus being treating with intensive drops and antibiotics without the analyse result. A week later his eye got worst and the result came back showing that he has the worst form of bacteria. The bacteria was eating up his cornea and he was in need of urgent and a very risky surgery to remove his eye or else it might burst and he could die. All this happen just right before our trip to London to visit my sister in law. Finally Nestor pulled through the surgery and we got him back the night before we left. Thanks to all my Facebook friends and family for the emotional and financial support and thanks to my in laws who took good care of him and all other bunnies while we were gone, Nestor is now recovering and doing well.

This batch of macarons are actually for thanking the vets and the team member who had done an excellent job for our little Nestor.

So, enough for the blah blah. Get back to the topic. Easter had become one of my favourite time since I became BUNNY CRAZY. I get excited seeing bunny decoration and just can't never have enough!! Sadly each year many baby bunnies are bought and offered as gift and most of them are abandoned after a few months. So I would let to take this opportunity to urge everyone to spread the words to people around them about this. Bunny can live up to 10 years and more, required regular exercise outside the cage, quality food and hays, and they required a lot care to keep they healthy and happy. So you are not prepare for 10 years commitment then - MAKE YOURS CHOCOLATE or Macaron !! :)

May I present you the Easter Macaron - Egg, Chick and Bunny




To make this batch I use
- 2 egg whites (80g)
- 60g castor sugar

- 100g icing sugar
- 60g almond meal

You will need 4 piping bags and, one nozzle with tiny head, 3 x 10 mm nozzles, toothpick and icing pen, some sugar decoration if you wish.

1. Mix almond meal and icing sugar together and blend it up in the blender. Sift then set aside.

2. Using electric beater, beat egg white until foamy, then add in half of the castor sugar, continue until the egg white reaches soft peak then add in the rest and beat until stiff peak.

3. Fold the dry ingredient to the meringue until everything is ROUGHLY combine. Seperate the batter in to 3 seperate bowls. Keep 1 tablespoon of mixture in a tiny bowl for the decoration.

4. One bowl will be left uncoloured, while the other 2 will be added in green and yellow. colouring. Start folding each batter in each bowl until a smooth shiny batter is obtain. The batter should flow down smoothly and formed a ribbon when it's ready.

5. Prepare your piping bag and block the tip. Fill in each piping bag. Start piping the batter in to oval shape.

6. For the chick macaron I simply pipe out some batter on the side and use chopstick to dip on each sides of the piped oval to create the wings.

7. For the bunny I place the nozzle with tiny head over the 10 mm to pipe the ear.I then place the sugar heard and sugar pearl on the piped shell.

8. For the egg macaron, add in orange colouring in the one tablespoon batter that was scooped out earlier, mix well and using a tooth pick, carefully dip in the batter then over the egg to 'draw' the decoration.

9. Preheat oven to 150 C while the macaron is resting. Bake for 12 minutes and let the macaron shells cool down before removing them.

10. Using the icing pen, draw the eyes and viola !






For the filling I just make simple chocolate ganache with milk chocolate and dark chocolate.

I hope that you enjoy the post and the macaron. Have a great Easter :)

March Saving On Blurb.com

Hey guys, just thought if some of you might be interested, Blurb is giving out special discount until 2 April 2012.

You can use these code on Macaron Fetish books or any other book on Blurb :)

Have fun

Macaron Day - The Mac Tweet Challenge and more..

Ohh shoooo ... it's March... I meant to do so many thing and time just flies !!!

Oh well March is going to be a busy month, as we will be visiting London to meet up with my sis-in-law and a new friend I had met in an animal protection group.

It's good and important for me to meet up with some people who are like minded with me. This makes me feel at least I am not alone in the battle to fight for the animals and it's always good to have thelm around when someday I feel so powerless against all the cruelty we have in the world.


So why am I telling you guys all this? Because I have created the Cat macarons for this challenge and they are my compassion to support a good friend of mine who had recently founded an association to help abandoned cats in Lorraine. They are doing a dinner and classical music night to help raising fund for the Lorraine SPA, the animal shelter in the region. She had asked me if I would like to participate. Unfortunately I have already booked the ticket to London and will not be in France the night of the event. However I made 100 macs in advance and keep them in the freezer and they will be offered for the event. All benefits will go to the association.

I am not including the recipe because they are classic white and black chocolate ganache that I had already posted in the previous posts. If any of you are interested, please kindly let me know and :)




Have a fabulous March !!!

It's February

Hello my dear followers

It's February again!! Love is in the air :) I have got a new code from Blurb to share with you guys

You can use it for my macaron books or any books you like that is on sell on Blurb.com :)
This code works only once per person, however you could share it with your friends and family as many times as you want :) The code is for a saving of $10, valid until 27th Feb 2012.

To use the discount code, just type SAVE10 in capital letters upon checking out.


Hope you guys are enjoying the fabulous February!

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.