MACARON MADNESS! AAAAAAAHH

HELLO WORLD

It's that time of the month again...

MACARON MAKING DAY! Yay!

Okay so this time, I decided to be adventurous and make some Oreo  flavoured macarons, he he he. But it was boring to just have one flavour. So I made some passionfruit ones too. I also experimented with the aging of eggwhites and guess what? It turns out YOU DONT NEED TO AGE THEM!

Below is the first batch I made this morning at 10am? So apparently I was still half asleep cause these turned out real ugly. These eggwhites were aged for about 2 days, but I poured in the syrup too fast and it got all clumpy and wouldn't squeeze out of the piping bag so I played with it for too long and the mixture got runny :(

Okay, feeling a little sad after my first batch failed... I had to make another one to cheer myself up. This time was slightly better, but the shells were too fragile and crumbled at my touch, AAAAAARGH!! This time, I didn't heat the syrup for long enough so the meringue didn't form properly. Damn eggwhites...

3rd time lucky. Feeling pretty depressed by this point, I was angry and just wanted to get it right :( I didn't age the eggwhites for these, its all about the quality of your meringue so concentrate and wake up!

Anywho, since i'm all for spreading the love, I'll share the recipe I used to make them. This recipe was adapted from a couple of blogsites including Tartlette and .... I can't remember the others, oh and just some notes I took from previous batches.

OK, ARE YA READY?

Just so you know though, this is just a recipe I've kinda patched together so it's a little dodgy, but it works for me... sometimes. Also, you'll need to leave plenty of time for these, they really can't be rushed or they'll look like wrinkled toes when they're baked, LoL.

Warning: These funny looking biscuits are addictive to make and come with lots of chloe-sterol, ha ha ha . 



Step by step recipe for  macarons with oreo buttercream.  


Using the Italian Meringue method. 




Ingredients: 


1. Meringue (A)


50g egg whites
a pinch of salt
Cream of tartar (optional)
Sugar syrup- 150g sugar and 50g of water.
35g Caster sugar (For making your shells shiny)


2. The almond meal mixture (B)


150g Almond meal
150g Icing Sugar
50g eggwhites
Food colouring of choice

Other pretty things
A candy thermometer if you have one

Passionfruit ganache filling

2 teaspoons of cornflour
1/4 cup passionfruit puree (you can buy this from woolies)
50g of white chocolate- or more depending on how thick you want it
3 tablespoons of unsalted butter


1. In a small saucepan, heat the passionfruit puree and cornflour till it dissolves and becomes a thick mixture.
2. Add in the cream and keep stirring. When it's bubbling at the sides, remove from the heat and whisk in the white chocolate until melted. Let it cool slightly and then whisk in your butter. Refrigerate until use.

Oreo buttercream filling: (weird measurements cause I split the original one to minimise wastage)

1 egg yolk
1/4 cup of caster sugar
1/4 stick of butter - I use the western star unsalted butter.
1/12 cup of water - yeah i know how the hell do you even measure this!? I dunno, guestimate!
10 smashed oreos, finely smashed.

1. Crush about 8 oreos finely.
2. Place the egg yolk in a stand mixer, or using a hand held one whisk on medium speed. 
3. Bring the sugar and water to almost boiling, set over high heat... slowly pour the hot syrup over the egg yolks and continue to whisk until cold. 
4. Beat in the butter, bits at a time.
5. Mix in your crushed oreos.
6. Leave in room temperature until you're ready to pipe them, this will harden in the fridge.

And now to prepare your macaron shells......... 




The night before: Okay, I suck at baking under pressure so I like to make the fillings the night before. Most ganaches and need a good few hours in the fridge to be ready for use anyway.
If your almond meal feels damp then you can weigh your 150g and bake it for about 10 minutes at 150 to shoo away the moisture in order to make prettier shells. :)
Sift the almond meal and the icing sugar together, or put everything into a food processor - but i dont have one so i sift, *insert sadface here*.


To make the shells:  

1.  Weigh out 35g of sugar for the meringue and 150g of sugar for the syrup. Leave aside.
2. Get your baking trays ready, line them with baking paper, or silicon mats if you have them ( i don't but I will be getting some soon.....apparently victoria's basement has them)
3. Get your pastry bag ready (10mm tip), turn it upside down and put it in a cup ready to be filled. Also get your food colouring ready, and anything else you need. You want to prep as much as you can because leaving the merginue for too long can cause it to deflate. 
4. Pre-heat oven to 130-150°C (It depends on your oven- you may have to do a test run)
5. Sift together the almond meal and the icing sugar. Add 50g of eggwhites (B) into your almond meal mixture, and any food colouring.
6. Make the syrup. Using a small pot/boiler thing, add your 150g of sugar with the 50g of water and leave on medium heat- don't stir this, just let it be.
7. While the syrup's heating, gently beat 50g of egg whites (A) with a pinch of salt. When they begin to foam- like a bubble bath, slowly add in the 35 g of sugar in 3 parts. Beat till the meringue looks like shaving cream- shiny and firm. 

7. Once the syrup reaches 110°C, or its JUST about to brown (don't take your eyes off because this all happens so fast) then remove from heat and slowly pour it down the side of the bowl- keep beating your meringue till it cools (5-10 mins). Make sure you pour the syrup in small portions so you don't cook the eggwhites.

8. Mix the meringue with the almond mixture, starting from the middle and working your way from the bottom to the top- remember not to do this too hard or with too many strokes. Mix for 2 to 3 minutes, until you have a shiny gooey mixture that seems elasticky. When you lift the spatula, a thick magma like ribbon should fall back down into the bowl. If you haven't reached this point before forming your shells, they will have a tiny peak at the top instead of a rounded cap. 

9. Transfer the batter to the pastry bag and pipe small, evenly spaced blobs.

10. Once you've finished piping, tap the tray from the bottom to get rid of the air bubbles... or sometimes what I do is just drop the whole tray onto the ground (not from too high obviously) 

11. Leave them to form a skin. 30 minutes is usually enough for me, but I don't see the harm in leaving them for longer, its up to you.

12. Bake for about 15 minutes- ish.

13. Let the shells cool and then you can start piping your filling!! 

Passionfruit macarons. They turned out surprisingly well, seems like practice does make (almost) perfect. 

What a lovely day :)