14 February 2011

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Heart Day!
After my awesome macaron fail the other week, I was deterimined to try again. I did, and succeeded, just in time for Valentine's Day. Macarons are quite the labor of love - they require patience in aging the eggs and beating the meringue until just right, tenderness while mixing the sugar/almonds into the meringue, of course some sweetness, and definitely hope that they'll turn out well, lol! And a sense of humor to shape them like little hearts!
This is the 1st (successful) time I've flavored the macarons - these are chai macarons with pink honey vanilla buttercream. This time around, I did everything I didn't before - aged the eggs, measured by weight, didn't overbeat or overmix anything. And look how cute! These are definitely a sweet treat for Valentine's day.
I Heart Chai Macarons

90g aged egg whites
2 tbsp white sugar
110g blanched almonds
200g powdered sugar
2 chai spice tea bags

Combine almonds, sugar, and the contents of the 2 teabags in a food processor and process until fine. Sift the contents into a big bowl, and then regrind the big bits and then sift again. Repeat until it's all fine.

In a stand mixer, beat the egg whites on medium until foamy like bubble bath. Turn the mixer up to high and add white sugar a little at a time and beat until you get stiff peaks. Remove from stand mixer.

Add 1/2 of the almond mixture to the bowl and use a spatula to fold in. Add the rest of the almond mix and continue folding until the batter is evenly incorporated. You want to fold until you get a consistency where you cut the spatula across and the batter sinks back into itself after 10 seconds. The whole process shouldn't take more than 50 strokes.

Line your baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop batter into a disposable piping bag. Snip off a 1/2" opening. To make hearts, pipe Vs onto the baking sheets. Otherwise, pipe quarter sized rounds. Make sure to leave at least 1" between them as the batter will spread. Allow to sit for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 300. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Allow to cool on the baking sheets.

Per the usual, recipe adapted from Tartelette :)

Pink Honey Vanilla Buttercream
1 stick butter
3/4 C confectioners sugar
1 Tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla
red food coloring (optional)

Beat all together. Scoop into a piping bag. Fill macaron shells.

3 comments:

  1. Lovely! Just shared on my blog, many thanks! :)

    http://mijbilcreatures.blogspot.com/

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! I just popped over and your blog is lovely :)

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  2. Wow! Such an amazing and helpful post this is. I really really love it. It's so good and so awesome. I am just amazed. I hope that you continue to do your work like this in the future also. metal spatula

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