frozen macarons from Trader Joe's

I've noticed frozen macarons available lately at both Costco and Trader Joe's.  Given the time and energy I've spent learning the fine art of macaron-ing lately, I'm partly appalled at the idea of assembly line, mass-produced macarons, partly bummed that my skills may now be obsolete, and partly surprised at how cheap they are.  (about $4 for a pack of 12 at Trader Joe's).

Trader Joe's offers 6 vanilla's and 6 chocolates, so it still lacks the more interesting flavors.

If these frozen macarons are any good, it could replace this whole set of supplies.

I just tried one of each.  The vanilla has pretty good flavor, but was way too mushy.  The chocolate had a much chewier texture and was closer to what I've made before and was pretty good (especially good if you like dark chocolate).

In conclusion, these are pretty decent.  They are easily better than the Miette macarons I've had.  (Note that they're also stored properly so that the macarons don't crush either.  Something that Miette hasn't seemed to learn yet.)

Macaron experiment

I'm making another two batches of macarons.  This time I'm going to try and cut down on the sugar in the shells.  I'm going from 150g of powdered sugar to 100g.  To keep the mass of dry ingredients the same, I'll be upping the almond meal from 150g to 200g.

Results:  Okay, just finished the biscuits.  The sweetness level is definitely lower, but I'm noticing some textural differences as well.

• When I take them out of the oven, I'm noticing the foot has a good height, but once it cools for a while, the foot shrinks.
• The outer shell still forms, but is thinner, and the base of the biscuit is a bit cakey.  There is a hollow space between the crispy top of the biscuit and the dense bottom.  This makes it more fragile and more likely to crack.
• The smaller biscuits turned out better because it got cooked more thoroughly and the bottoms turned out more solid.

Overall, I'm not crazy about the change in texture.  I think I swung too far with replacing the powdered sugar with almond flour.  Next time, let's replace just 25g.  (Yeah, I'm using binary search.  Let's make use of this CS degree.)

I'll report back on the ganache once that's done.

Some photos from the process after the page break...

links for food coloring

While I'm thinking about macarons, I decided to check online to see where I can find powdered food coloring.

Here are a few links:

Country Kitchen SweetArt
Amazon ('cause what can't you find on Amazon?)
Candland Crafts

Holy what?  Did you know there are "Food Writer Markers"?

I can just imagine a 3 year old seeing mom do this and then taking a Sharpie to Thanksgiving dinner.  Thank you world for ambiguous products.

New macaron books!

Yay!  Presents from mom and dad!

 

and fresh off the pre-order list...

And this one was a present from Hoyt :)  (Thank you!)

There are some interesting looking flavor combinations in here.  I can't wait to try a different ganache recipe too.  Will post the results of my experiments when I get a chance to make another batch.

matcha azuki macaron

The macaron is not the featured dessert here, but still the combination intrigues me and I might try that mousse recipe and see how it goes at the center of the macaron.

match azuki entremet

macaron update

I made another batch of macarons this weekend with great success!

It took half a day to make a batch on my own.  I did half a batch of mango ganache filling and half batch of red bean paste filling.

The mango ones turned out perfect, but the red bean paste ganache didn't chill long enough and was runny at first.  The red bean ones were also on parchment paper instead of the silpat and also came out mis-shapened.

I had no problems with oven bake times.  I put the oven on 300 degrees and baked the biscuits in the top-middle rack about 16 minutes total.

The macarons were good but still a bit too sweet.  I think next time we can cut back on the powered sugar and compensate for the same amount of almond meal so the dry mass stays the same.

Oh and here's a recipe I found from a blog and it has pink bunny macarons.  Cute.  I will try to do some fun shapes again soon, but a bit differently.


Easter Bunny Macarons

latest macaron news

We hauled ass the weekend of 3/26-27 and made 2 full batches of Italian-meringue macarons for a fundraising bake sale at work.

It was a spectacular success and people seemed to really enjoy them.  Though it made me nervous when French people bought one since I'd imagine they would have even higher expectations.

The flavors we made:
- red bean paste ganache (stumbled onto this recipe which happened from Thip's blog.  we had just taken a class from Thip 2 weeks before.  yummy!  will try just straight red bean paste sometime too.)
- mango ganache (I cooked down some mango puree for the flavoring.  really good!)
- lychee filling (cooked down and blended some canned lychee.  it got easily overpowered by the white chocolate flavor.  I ended up making a pretty pulpy lychee filling.)
- white chocolate ganache (pretty simple and pretty good)

We ran into some trouble with getting the macaron shells to cook fully.  Baking the standard 8-10 minutes seems to leave it a bit gooey on the inside.  We ended up baking them at least 20 minutes.
- is our oven weak?
- does it make a difference that our heating element is on the top?
- or is it okay that it's a bit gooey on the inside at first?  will it cool and harden?

supplies to get for further macaron exploration

Time to do some shopping this weekend at Sur la Table :)

I need:
* a kitchen scale
* little plastic scraper
* Ateco pastry bags and a #3 tip
* powdered food color
* cooking thermameter
* maybe metal mixing bowls

Italian macaron class

For my birthday, Michael signed us up for a macaron class taught by a pastry chef in San Francisco.  We went this last weekend and, in a group of 6, finally got some formal training :)

pictures coming soon.  recipe is after the page break.  here are the results of our labor. 

The flavors were

• strawberry balsamic
• passion fruit
• yuzu
• coffee
• chocolate
• peanut butter

I'm excited to try this again and experiment with some flavors.  I have a few ideas: ginger peanut butter, lavender, earl grey, key lime, rose water.

macaron notes

Here are the things I did different in this latest macaron experiment:

• used fresh egg whites instead of the "Just Whites" from a carton
• let egg whites warm to room temperature before whipping
• used the copper-lined pot
• whipped egg whites to stiffer peaks
• used silpat instead of parchment paper to bake on

Here are the things I learned:

• getting stiff egg whites is the key to averting flat macarons
• macaron biscuit is a bit too sweet
• raspberry cream filling is too liquidy
• bottom of biscuit is empty.  might need to cool completely before pulling it off.

Things to experiment with in the future

• pulverize powdered sugar and almond meal mixture in food processor.  will it give smoother texture?
• let egg white "age" for a day or two before whipping
• try different filling recipe
• try less powdered sugar so biscuit is not so sweet
• will letting it cool completely before pulling it off keep it from being hollow on the bottom?
• how to get more uniform shape? - mold?
• how to get the smooth surface like the one's from Paulette's?
• how to dial it from airy to chewy?
• can I add flavoring to the biscuit without changing the chemistry of it too much?
• if putting a glaze on the outside, when should it go on?

macarons with raspberry buttercream filling

Behold!  My first successful batch of macarons!  Michael was such a great help and these turned out so much better than last time.

macaron batter piped onto the silpat.  (with a few fun shapes)

the macaron biscuits baked

 

close up on the macaron biscuits

Can I interest you in a delish little macaron? 

I'm ridiculously happy with the results right now.  Will post what I've learned from this time soon!