I wasn't really happy with my last macarons, the snowmen and bears, and I also wanted to practice heart macarons - they look so pretty on wedding cakes, but require some
practice! Which day to better start that practice than the "Jour du Macaron", which happens to be the Canadian beginning of spring, namely the 20th March aka TODAY?
So I did some research how it could be that the macarons au chocolat were perfect, with not a single one getting fissurs, while the snowmen and bears were so problematic. I took the the 7 egg whites recipe of the macarons au chocolat and converted it to 3 egg whites, and I got exactly the snowmen and the teddy bear recipes, so the composition was the same. My conclusion: I had folded the batter too long and I'm holding the 10-or 30-second rule responsible:
The Snowman recipe
said: "Take care not to overmix, the mixture should flow like
lava and a streak of mixture spread over the surface of the rest of the
mixture should disappear after about 30 seconds."
The Bears- recipe said: "Run a knife through. If the line disappears after ten seconds, stop folding." However, in the French video
that helped me make the perfect chocolate macarons, it does not look at all as if
anythig would flow together within 30 or 10 seconds, so this time I ignored both rules and left the dough extra thick and such that nothing happens with a cut in the batter for way more 30 seconds, and voilà, the
macarons turned out great and not a single had fissures!
I filled the macarons with butter cream, which was left over from a wedding cake test (more on that later!)
My current "favorite kid" in my circle of friends is little Clara - because she loves pastry of all kinds and thus appreciates my hobby! Shortly after she had learned my name ("Din"), her mom returned home with the Christmas cookies that we had baked together. Since then, all kinds of cookies and sweets are also called "Din" by Clara, which makes me very proud!
Since Clara had been ill last week, I wanted to bake her some healty cookies for her cookie jar and that's how I made up the recipe for these cookies with spelt whole grain flour, brown sugar, and oats.
Also, I got to use the little cookie cutters wich my dad had given me for Christmas :-)
I thought that the "Dins" did taste a bit healthy, but Clara apparently likes them very much!
The Cupcate Rose Bouquet gave me the idea that my favorite Hermann cinnamon buns could also be presented in that manner - because that's much fancier than just sticking them into a basket, right?
Also, the cinnamon bun bouquet has the great advantage over the cupcake bouquet
that the construction is much easier to transport!
The butter cream is a bit sticky and unstable after all, unlike the cinnamon buns. This time, everything went much faster and worked like a charm, such that I even arrived at the party super punctual :-)
Recently, I was visiting the "newest" baby in my circle of friends, little Luisa. I had also baked her a gingerbread heart and a cake (for stressed-out parents) because I was invited for coffee. I thought that bear macarons would be the ideal ornament for a baby's birthday cake. Unfortunately, mine were nowhere near as perfect as the original, but I keep practicing!
The cake was a sponge cake with sweetened condensed milk I had discovered here, with the dark chocolate ganache that I fill into my chocolate macarons. I made the macarons without food coloring, only using homemade elderberry syrup to dye them purple!
This recipe is ideal for small leftovers of royal icing, for example, from decorating gingerbread hearts. Since I had baked several recent Gingerbread (some of my friends had babies again), I even had the opportunity to produce the monster eyes in two stages, so that they have a pretty edge at the back, such that they can be stuck into all sorts of cakes, muffins or creams. In the United States you can buy those monster eyes readymade, but they are really very easy to make yourself! Just take a some royal icing and black food coloring, and I think chocolate would also work!
