Sandwiching the Macarons

Okay, I know my Macarons didn't turn out, all pretty and stuff. It still tasted really good. You have to believe me! Don't worry, I am going to have a Macaron Do over Blog soon. Let it begin and lets start putting the French Macaons together.

For the filling I chose to do a Chocolate Ganache Malt filling. Ganache means; sauce, glaze & or filling for pastries. It is just made up of Chocolate & Cream. Pretty easy huh! In this case I am going to use it as our Macaron filling. I made this before I got started on the French Macarons, so I can let the filling cool down.

What We Need

Macaron Shells

Chocolate Malted Ganache

Teaspoon

Double Broiler

Measuring Cup

Chocolate Ganache

1/2 Cup- Heavy Cream

1 Cup- Semi- Sweet Chocolate

1 TBS- Butter

2-3 TBS- Malted Powder

Directions: I set up a double broiler, as seen in the picture below. I use it, so the Chocolate and cream doesn't burn or Seize up. Make sure we get NO water in the bowl with chocolate. It will break apart. 

Wonder how to set a double broiler up? Get a boiling pot and put water in there, enough to where it doesn't touch the other pot or bowl. I used a stainless steel bowl and set it in there. 

Okay here we go, first thing we need to do is Mise En Place- gathering all of our ingredients. (The Butter is hidden, my bad).

Set up your Double Broiler, then heat up Heavy Cream, gradually whisk in chocolate. Finish up your ganache by adding in your butter.

Now we take our Macaron Shells & fill them. Get your off set spatula and slide it under the macaron, to release it from the parchment paper. They stick, we just need to patient and careful while we lift them off. They are very delicate little treats. Get on of your shells, and scoop a little bit of ganache, spread a tad bit and then put on another Macaron shell. Lightly push together, now you have a little cute, yummy French Macaron sandwich treat.

Here is a little video, on how to fill the Macarons.

Don't get scared by the picture. Trust me they didn't turn out as horrible as this looks. It may have been how I took the picture. As I said earlier, their is room for improvement. In the next post I will discuss, some tips, and how I will be doing it the next time. Yes there will be another attempt for French Macaron. We are not giving up!

Maybe the next photo will be a sense of release ? =)

See not to bad right? I was a little upset, but not anymore when I tried it. I was happy!! My friend loved it, she couldn't even stop eating it. Her 5 year old son loved it too. Thank you for the support, and lets talk it over, and see how we can improve!

We don't want to overload on sugar right?? Once a week, every Wednesday we will be "Relaxing our sweet tooth". I am going to talk about savory dishes, and I will be cooking some dinner and sharing some recipes. See you on Wednesday!

Chocolate Malted French Macaron

UN PRETTY, BUT OH SOOOO TASTY

Today is the day we talk about French Macarons, they are different than your traditional macaroon, it is made up of egg whites, sugar and coconut. What is a French Macaron? It is a Sweet Meringue, made with Almond Flour & Confectioner Sugar, with a ganache, jam or butter cream filling. These suckers  is a little tricky to make. For my first time, I think they turned out alright. There is some room for improvement. We will talk it over later on, and I can fill you on in with some cool techniques & tips. This is how it went for me. It's not the prettiest, but I was still overall happy with the taste and the fact I finally did it!

What we will need

• Basic French Macaron Recipe
• Food Coloring you desire
• Chocolate Malted Ganache
• Whisk/ Hand Blender works better
• Parchment Paper
• Baking sheet pan
• Piping Bag
• Stainless Steel Bowl
• Offset spatula
• Patience =)

First off we gather all of out ingredients together AKA Mise En Place.

The recipe, I chose to work with I got out of this wonderful book, called Macarons Chick & Delicious French Treats; By Annie Rigg.

I was first introduced to French Macaons, from one of my cousins. We went to go visit her in San Jose, and she took our families out for the day in San Francisco, and took us to check out local markets, on the Pier I think it was. " She was like Shob, you need to try these. They are called French Macarons" of course in my mind I am thinking of the traditional coconut Macarons. I was Wow'ed by all the colors and flavor options. My cousin was like they are so good, she said to try the Rose & I got Salted Carmel. That taste is something I could never ever forget about. I was hooked from there! I thank my cousin still to this day that she introduced me to the one and only FRENCH MACARON.

My sister bought this book for me. We went to check out this book store called Borders. They were having a close out sale. My sister wanted to treat me and buy a book for me, that's when I seen this book about French Macarons.  I have had this book for about 2 years now, finally I am using it. I always would just stare at the pictures, and drool over the pages, intimidated and hungry. I knew one day eventually I would conquer my fear and try it!

Basic French Macaron recipe

2/3 Cup- Almond Flour

1 1/2 Cup- Confectioner Sugar

For the Shells-

3 TBS- Superfine Sugar

3- Egg Whites

Dash of salt

*For Malted flavored shells, just add 2 TBS of malted powder in with the Almond Flour & Confectioner Sugar.

*Bake them in 325-350 Degree Oven for about 10 Minutes

First off we want to get the almond flour, confectioner sugar & our Malted powder and process it for about 30 seconds. Put it aside. 

Get your egg whites, and start beating it until, we get some soft peaks, add your dash of salt in.

We are trying to get some nice stiff peaks. We want to gradually add our sugar in a teaspoon at a time, whisk then add another teaspoon and so on, until we reach our stiff peaks. We want to be careful not to over beat or under beat. We will go further in details, in my next post.

We need to add the almond flour mixture in a little bit at a time, and fold it in gradually and gently. If we just mix it in, it will go flat, and all our hard work will be destroyed. Add a little bit of flour and then fold, add a little bit of flour and then fold. We don't want to over fold, so once the flour has been fully folded in LEAVE IT ALONE, DO NOT FOLD ANY MORE! I know it's hard, but we just need to stop.

I learned some more tips on, ways to pipe out the shells. For now I will show you how I did it, which is by using a piping bag. Lay your parchment paper down. Fill in your piping back and then carefully pipe. It gets a little messy.

Okay, so once it was piped the results aren't what I was looking & hoping for, but it is okay. We will do this right. We will go over later in the blog, what went wrong and how we can improve, for our next try. The good part is though, it still tasted really good. 

Let me show you, how the over all piping and baking part went. Not so good, but remember it tasted really good. Still had a nice crunch, and was soft inside the shell.

I know, I know. When they are put together they look so much different! Check it out, we will be talking about the Ganache filling & how to put it together.

We don't want to overload on sugar right?? Once a week, every Wednesday we will be "Relaxing our sweet tooth". I am going to talk about savory dishes, and I will be cooking some dinner and sharing some recipes. See you on Wednesday!