Saturday, October 25, 2014

Macaron



I decided to embark on a journey to make macarons, because I've been inundated by the macaron posts on Instagram. I've only made in once in all my years of amateur baking because I failed miserably and it took SO MUCH EFFORT.

I had to age the egg whites before making the treat i.e. I actually have to plan in advance. I prefer to bake based on my "feel" for the day.

Most recipes also require you to let the piped macarons sit and form a skin. The one time I made it, I let the macarons sit for a few hours and STILL there was no skin. I concluded (at that time) that the local weather was too humid for us to make macarons. However, with the influx of macaron photos showing that you could make macarons in Singapore, I started my research on macarons.

After much surfing online, I found an amazing website : bravetart.com. Stella (a pastry chef) wrote a few posts that gave an easier way to make macarons (no aging of egg whites and no waiting for the skin to form.. yay!)

Armed with this information, I made macarons everyday. Just the shells since my first few batches cracked consistently. (I realised later it was probably because I baked with my baking stone in the oven.) I didn't dare change the recipe although it is extremely sweet on its own because I read that the sugar stabilises the macaron mixture and if you change the proportion, you risk getting issues with your macaron.

So, this is my 9th go. I'm still having problems with the feet - they rise nicely in the oven, then collapse once I turn the pan. Sigh.

I still can't figure it out why. I guess tiny feet are better than no feet. LOL!

So, in order to make the macarons look more like macarons and not just biscuits / cookies, I decided to whip up some French Buttercream using the left over egg yolks. Frankly, I find it a little too rich in the butter arena (I feel that way even though I'm using spread to substitute butter) and the buttercream doesn't hold up well in our hot and humid weather.  Then again, all types of buttercream melt in hot and humid weather right?



I reckon I should use jam instead, but the only jam in the fridge is marmalade jam (don't like it).

I put quite a thick layer of buttercream, but once I bit into it, it all oozed out from the back. :D




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