My Nemesis: Vanilla Macarons

It seems that I may have become a bit lazy in my macaron making. I started taking short cuts. Like not regrinding the almonds with the icing sugar. I feel so ashamed. My macarons came out fine and beautiful for the most part, except, sadly, for one of my favourites: vanilla. I don't why, but it saddens me, so I shall do away with my slothful ways and make some legit macarons from scratch with all the bells and whistles. Mostly because I have an order that needs to be completed, but also to redeem myself.

I only needed 15 vanilla macs for the order, but I made extra to buffer against the realistic possibility of cracking and sticking. If you've ever made macarons, then you know what I mean. I've used white chocolate mousse for the filling, simply because I happened to be making white chocolate mousse on the same day, so I kept some back for the macs.

Rasperry, Vanilla and White Chocolate Macarons

Violet and Vanilla Macarons

Macaron Shells:

200g ground almonds
200g icing sugar
200g sugar
67g water
150g egg white
Vanilla paste

Combine the almonds and icing sugar and regrind the lot sifting the powder into another bowl in batches. Add half of the unbeaten egg white to the almond powder and the vanilla paste.

Place the sugar and water in a saucepan over a medium-high heat. Stir gently until the sugar has dissolved, then don't stir again. Using a sugar thermometer, heat the sugar water until it reaches 115 degrees Celsius.

Immediately begin beating the rest of the egg white on the highest setting until fluffy. By this stage the sugar should have reached 118 degrees Celsius. Lower the mixer speed, but carry on beating and slowly adding the molten sugar in a thin stream. This will take some time. Once all the sugar has been added, set the mixer to the highest setting and continue to beat until the mixture reaches room temperature.

Take one large spoonful of the Italian meringue and mix it briskly into the almond powder. Add another spoonful until and mix in the same way until the mixture is loose and not so dry. Add the rest of the meringue and fold until the desired texture is reached. When you drop a spoonful of the mixture, it should collapse and smoothen, but not run everywhere. Put the mixture in a piping bag fitted with a round nozzle and pipe round discs about 2cm in diameter.

Allow the discs to rest for a minimum of 20 min and set your oven (convection) to 160 degrees Celsius. After the macs have rested nicely, lower the oven to 150 degrees Celsius. Bake the macs, one tray at a time, for about 9 minutes depending on the oven. I sandwiched my macs together with white chocolate mousse and alternated with raspberry and chopped, candied violets.

White Chocolate Mousse

4 egg yolks
50g caster sugar
250ml milk
vanilla paste to taste
2 tsp gelatin
400g white chocolate
250ml cream
1 eggwhite

Put the chocolate in a bowl placed over a saucepan of boiling water until the chocolate melts. Bring the milk to the boil with the vanilla paste in a saucepan. While that's going down, beat the egg yolks and the caster sugar in a bowl set over the saucepan of boiling water. When the milk starts to boil, switch off the heat, but carry on whisking the yolks until pale and thick. Gradually add the milk to the yolks, mixing constantly. Continue mixing and put the bowl over the saucepan of boiling water once again. Stir until the mixture starts to thicken like a custard. Take it off the heat.

Dissolve the powdered gelatine in about a tablespoon of water. Add the dissolved gelatine to the custard. Now make a white chocolate custard. Mix the custard into the white chocolate, one to two spoonfuls at a time. Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature.

Add the egg white to the cream and beat until it is thick, but floppy. Fold the cream into the cooled white chocolate custard, one spoonful at a time. Pour the mixture into the little containers. Set in the fridge for as long as it takes your fridge to set it.

White Chocolate Mousse Jars

A Foray into Middle Eastern Cuisine

As mentioned in my last post, I had the pleasure of travelling to the UAE at the end of last year. Not in transit, but as an actual destination. I also visited Oman briefly. The food from the area is not a cuisine I am used to and it took some getting used. They use an awfully large amount of parsley in their dishes. I really don't like lots of parsley unless it has been augmented by a mountain of garlic. Some of the less enthusiastically be-parsley-ed food did grow on me. I love Baba Ganoush. Probably because I love brinjal and garlic, which are the main components. Breads in fresh salads is such a very neat idea. The flavours just get absorbed right in there. I also happened to have sumac. Which is why I made Fattoush using pan toasted pieces of pita. It would have been an affront to the the entire cuisine if I did not make Hummus. It is not my favourite dip when we have it at restaurants, but the beauty of making it at home is that you can make it the way you prefer. I used so much garlic and lemon juice. It would have been too heavy for me otherwise. I'm sure the tahini can be bought, but it is so easy to make I don't understand the point.

Baba Ganoush
This recipe is very imprecise and I apologise for that. I consulted various recipes and then just decided to wing it. Without a pen and paper. It tasted lovely, but the replication may be difficult.

3 Brinjal
3 cloves of garlic
Olive oil
1 tblsp (approx.) Tahini
Lemon juice to taste
Salt

Set your oven to as high as it can go. For my oven, this is on grill and set at level 9. Rub some olive oil onto the brinjal and poke some holes in them with a fork if you're super paranoid like me. Put the brinjal in the oven and let them know the fires of hell, turning frequently. Try not to get crapped on by house mates. Check the tenderness of the brinjal to test if they're done. I used a skewer and I wanted no resistance. Peel them and extract the innards. I used a pestel and mortar, although I have heard of this contraption called a food processor and deem it a suitable alternative. Mash the garlic with the salt until it is homogenous. Add the brinjal innards and pound them until it becomes more pasty than stringy. Mix in the tahini and lemon juice and then gradually add in the olive oil mixing well after every micro addition.

Fattoush

1/2  an iceberg lettuce, shredded
2 sliced mediterranean cucumbers
1 sliced red onion
1 diced tomato
1/2 green pepper, diced
A small bunch of flat-leaf parley, chopped
A small bunch of mint, chopped
1/2 teaspoon of sumac
pan-toasted pieces of pita

60ml lemon juice
60ml olive oil
1 clove of garlic, minced
salt
Freshly cracked black pepper

Combine the lettuce, cucumber, onion, tomato, pepper, herbs and sumac in a bowl. In a separate bowl, whish together the lemon juice, oil, garlic, salt and pepper to make the dressing. Just before serving add the pieces of pita and  the dressing to the other salad ingredients and toss in an overly dramatic fashion.

Hummus

400g can of chickpeas in water
2 cloves garlic
1 tblsp (or more, to taste) tahini
lemon juice, to taste
olive oil
1/4 tsp cumin
salt
Freshly cracked black pepper

Mash up the garlic with some salt until it forms a paste. Then add the chickpeas and give it the same treatment. Mix in the tahini, lemon juice and cumin. The slowly add the olive oil mixing well. Add salt and pepper to taste.

A Touch of Exoticism

I'm not sure that "exoticism" is a word, but I shall use it anyway. The confection you see above is a pistachio, rose and strawberry macaron. A French classic imbued with flavours reminiscent of the middle east, or the mediterranean (depending on who you're talking to). 

I may come off a little bit macaron obsessed given that most of my posts have been on the subject, but to be perfectly honest the true reason for this is that macarons are so photogenic that I'm instantly reminded to get my camera. This is not the case with all the food I make. Bread pudding and mousse may be sexier desserts, but they don't scream "shoot me!" (in a purely photographical sense).

The pistachios for this beauty were purchased in Oman on my brief visit there at the beginning of this year. Together with rose-perfumed ermine frosting, the flavour of the desert just sings through it. Rose and pistachio is such a classic middle eastern combination; a no-brainer really. I prefer my macarons to be offset with a tart fruit. It's unbearable sweet for me otherwise. Strawberry has such a strong fragrance by itself, but I feel that it complements the rose beautifully.

I used my normal recipe for macarons which you'll find here, but I swop half of the ground almonds with ground pistachios and I add a touch of green food colouring. The recipe for the rose-scented ermine frosting you'll find below.

Rose-scented Ermine Frosting

125ml milk

4tsp cake flour

110g butter, softened

125ml caster sugar

1tsp rose water

Mix the flour with a few spoonfuls of the milk until completely dissolved. Add this mixture to the rest of the milk in a saucepan. Cook the mixture on a medium heat until the milk thickens. Transfer to a different container and seal the mixture with cling film. Full on surface contact. We don't want a skin to form.

When the "roux" has cooled down, beat the butter and the sugar in a separate bowl until pale and fluffy. Pour in the rose water. Start adding the roux a tablespoonful at a time while continuing to beat the mixture. Continue this process until the mixture is silky with a texture lighter than butter icing, but denser than cream.

Macaron Party

It is not entirely a secret that I love baking and I have made macarons for some of the parties I've been invited to. So it wasn't really surprising when one of my university friends asked if I would teach her how to make macarons. I had never before taken the time to teach someone to bake, so I readily agreed and invited her over to my kitchen. Then another class mate overheard and said that she would also love to learn how to make them. I invited her too. In discussing the process and logistics, another friend overheard. The third person was critical mass for me and so I invited all the girls in the Masters maths class to join in on a Macaron Party, as well as a few other friends. 

Music from Phantom of the Opera playing in the background, we set to work making a macaron feast. We made raspberry, pistachio, chocolate and lemon. There are bowls of white and dark chocolate ganache, along with the bowls of almond and egg white, featured in the picture above. We also made lemon curd for the lemon macarons. The recipe for macarons that we made can be found in my Halloween Macarons post. It took the whole of the morning and most of the afternoon with a brief recess for a simple lunch of Spaghetti Pomodoro and another for an oven malfunction. 

It was a fantastic bonding experience and fast-tracked that awkward getting to know each other phase that new class mates would ordinarily have to go through. While I don't necessarily think any of them will attempt the recipe at home, at least they will be a little more appreciative of the magnitude of the effort it takes the next time they eat a macaron. 

My First Wedding Cake

After a long, drowsy 9 hour flight home from Dubai, a very creased, sleep deprived Salma stumbled through customs etc. with, what felt like, a toddler weight backpack hanging from my shoulders. I nearly lost a toe removing my 28kg (right on the money, baby) suitcase from the baggage carousel. My vacation in Dubai had been with my family, but my trip home was completely solo. Why, you ask? Because 5 days later my cousin would be getting married. Just enough time, I think, to recover and then shop for, bake and decorate a 3-tier wedding cake. With hindsight I can now tell you, just barely enough time.

I arrived on the 2nd of January and allocated that day for rest. The next day was for shopping, but, for some reason, certain baking supply shops believed that they were allowed to be closed. No matter, there are other baking supply shops, but a lot of time and petrol was spent driving around from shop to shop. Baking finally commenced the following day with the bottom tier of the cake. A 35cm diameter date and walnut cake, which is a particular favourite of my family. I've never been a fan of fruit cake and I know most people don't like it, but it is dense, which makes it ideal for wedding cakes. Date and walnut cake is denser than most cakes and buttery. The dates become a bit like toffee after baking in the oven and the walnuts have a lovely toasty flavour, rich and nutty. It took forever to bake and I had to carefully, but quickly slip a round of baking paper on top of the cake to prevent it from burning in my over-eager oven, but it was well worth the effort. My perfect substitute for fruit cake.

The next tier was a 25cm, rich Madeira cake. You can taste the butter in every bite. It is one of my favourite cakes. Moist, luxurious. The edges almost crunchy. Okay, very crunchy, because the one I was eating was the first attempt that had burnt in the oven. I used another round of baking paper to prevent the next one from burning. You think you know a cake, then something like this happens. It's alright though, because, once the charred bits had been cut off, mum used the first attempt for a trifle. The top tier was a 15cm chocolate cake. Everybody likes chocolate cake. It's the same recipe as the rich Madeira cake, except I added some cocoa to it.

Once all the cake were cooked and cooled, I began the process of enrobing the cakes in Marzipan and Plastic Icing (a.k.a fondant). The big cake was a bit of a limb-coordination disaster. It took three attempts. Marzipan and Plastic icing each. The smaller cakes were much easier. I stuck the Marzipan to the cake with fig jam instead of the usual apricot jam, because for some reason there was no apricot jam in the house. Actually, I know the reason. I'd been out of town for three weeks. Fig jam tastes better than apricot jam anyway and complements the middle eastern flavour of the dates. I used water to stick the plastic icing to the Marzipan and then smoothed the "skirt" in place.

The making of the individual decorations was a study in frustration. None of my cutters were small enough. The petals and frond-like-things had to be individually cut and molded. I bought the tiny flower cutter. Those things come in handy and it is much cheaper to make the tiny flowers than buy them, especially since many of the bought flowertjies are broken by the time you get them home. I coloured the Plastic icing with a cream gel colour. It probably would have been cheaper to just use modelling chocolate, but I didn't feel like making some at that stage. Each decoration is held in place with royal icing. I also used royal icing to pipe the pearls at the base of each cake to create a necklace at the base of their necks. The bow and ribbon is not made with icing. I've done that before and never again. The board is painted with white chocolate to get a ribbed effect on the board with a paint brush. The flower topper was kindly made for me with great skill by Fabulous Flowers in Cavendish Square, which is possibly my favourite shop.

The wedding was on Saturday in the evening. I think I had about three hours of sleep Friday night, but I got it done and delivered by Saturday morning. My very first solo wedding cake. Let's keep this kind of thing special by doing it rarely.

A very tired Salma, protecting the cake in the boot of the car.

Date and Walnut Cake
500g dried dates, broken into pieces
750g butter, softened
3.5 cups caster sugar
10 eggs
750g self-raising flour
big pinch of salt
2 level tsp baking powder
2 tsp mixed spice
0.5 cup oil

Mix the dates with a quarter of the flour, so that the dates are coated. Cream the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at time, beating well between each egg. Sift the remaining flour into the butter mixture with the salt and the mixed spice. Fold the dry ingredients carefully into the butter and egg mixture until fully combined. Add the oil and mix to combine. Pour the mixture into a well-greased 35cm diameter round cake tin with baking paper lining the base. Put another round of baking paper on top of the cake. Bake the cake in a 170°C oven for anything between 2 hours and 2.5 hours, depending on the oven.

Madeira Cake and Chocolate Cake (halve the measurements)
500g butter
500g caster sugar
500g self-raising flour (replace a fifth with cocoa powder for the chocolate cake)
8 eggs
1.5-2 cups buttermilk

Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each eggs. Fold in the sifter flour (and cocoa, if making the chocolate cake). Add enough buttermilk to loosen the mixture until it has reached dropping consistency. Pile the cake mixture in greased and lined tins. Bake for an hour to 1.5 hours at 180°C.

I did not fill the cakes with fun and interesting frostings, because I did not want to mess the cake up. I may do so next time now that I'm more confident.

Pain Perdu

The best part about finally being on vacation is being able to have a lazy morning. I woke up on Saturday, without the assistance of an alarm clock, at the ripe, old time of 09:00. It was glorious. No stressing over deadlines, or studying. Yes, I have vac work, but it's not strenuous at all. There's no rush, none of the mindless panic that is usually associated with term time. Most importantly, however, is the fact that I do not have to rush breakfast. No more stingy piece of toast slathered with peanut butter clamped between my teeth as I rush out of the house. No more hastily gulped down cereal with scaldingly hot milk dribbling down my chin (that's not exactly true, but the imagery is fantastic and it's close enough to the truth). I sauntered into the kitchen and took stock of what was there. Two mini loaves of slightly stale brioche. About 6 limes. Strawberries. Inspiration strikes. Do we have eggs? Yes. Enough milk. Yes, again. Looks like I'm making Pain Perdu.

Ever since I saw Heston Blumenthal's Christmas Special, I've wanted to recreate that magic. If you've even so much as heard of the man, you will know that this is no simple task. Baby steps, I think, is the solution to this particular problem. The dessert he made for the meal was Pain Perdu with nitro-scrambled, reindeer milk ice-cream. I decided to stick with just the Pain Perdu. Liquid nitrogen and reindeer milk were sold out at the Woolworths. He had an excellent technique for creating an added crispiness to the toast. Dredging the cooked slices in bubbling hot, molten sugar. I will never again make it in any other way. The ice-cream that I used is shop bought, as is the brioche itself. The meal, after all, was impromptu. There will always be a next time for a leisurely breakfast, where I can make my own ice-cream and brioche.

Pain Perdu
140g milk
2 eggs
17g caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
zest of one lime
Two brioche mini loaves, sliced into 1cm slices
1 tbsp clarified butter
Extra caster sugar
Vanilla ice-cream
Strawberries or any other fresh fruit

Whisk the milk, eggs, sugar, extract and zest together until homogeneous. Put the brioche in a plastic freezer bag and add the mixture. Wiggle the slices around to get the mixture in all the nooks and crannies. Remove as much of the air from the bag as possible using a vacuum sealer. Open the bag. Gently remove the soaked slices of brioche and lay them on a rack for a few minutes to allow the excess mixture to drip off.

Melt the butter in a non-stick pan until gently bubbling. Fry the slices of brioche until golden on both sides. Drain them on some paper towels. Wipe your pan clean. Pour enough of the extra caster sugar into the pan, so that the bottom is covered. Allow the sugar to melt and then put the brioche back in the pan. Sprinkle some more caster sugar onto the exposed side of the slices. Flip them over and allow that side to caramelise. Remove from the pan and place the slices on a silicone mat to allow the caramel to harden and no longer be molten lava hot. Sprinkle with some icing sugar and enjoy with good vanilla ice-cream and some sort of tangy fruit. Syrup is not strictly necessary on account of the crunchy sugar glaze coating the bread. There's enough for two people. I shared it with my brother and there was one slice left over.

Halloween Macarons

Macarons are difficult. Why do I carry on making them? Temperamental, glorified cookies.

I'll tell you why.

It's because they're fabulous. Pretentious, classy and also fun. And, you can say to people, "yeah, I can make them," with a smug tone. I made these for a Halloween party. I didn't have black food colouring, so I used a combination of blue, red and a smidge of yellow. Plus a healthy dose of cocoa. The orange ones were easier with just red and yellow. I filled the black chocolate ones with raspberry preserve. Pretty decent stuff from Woolworths. The orange ones got chopped peaches and double cream.

Making macarons requires a strategy. You have to be sure you have enough time; be sure you have enough egg white; be sure you know how to get the right colour. And even more important: know thine oven. Learning to make macarons is a trial and error process, but then, even when you've done it a million time, it can still go wrong. 

Vindictive little buggers.

I'll be helping my friends sister make them after my exams in about a month, so there shall be more detailed instructions forthcoming. These instructions will be pretty detailed anyway.

Step 1: Grind the Almonds

135g ground almonds

135g icing sugar

50g egg white

I know the almonds are already ground. Grind it again. Together with the icing sugar. Sift. Discard the bits that don't get through. Add the egg white and the food colouring. Mix mix mix. Cover with cling film and set aside.

Step 2: Making the Italian Meringue
135g sugar
30g water

50g egg white

Put the sugar and the water in a small saucepan and put on medium heat. You'll need a sugar thermometer. Stir until the sugar dissolves then don't stir again. Keep track of the temperature. When it reaches 110 degrees, start beating the egg white with an electric mixer. When the sugar reaches 118 degrees, remove from the heat. Add to the egg whites, while continuously beating on medium speed, in a thin (not too thin) stream. You won't get all the sugar. Don't stress about it. Put the beater on high speed and continue beating until the egg white cools to luke warm.

Scoop in the beaten egg white and fold in. This is the truly tricky bit. Mix until everything is incorporated, but don't over-mix or it will be too runny. Test the mixture on a plate by dropping a spoonful on it. Wait 30 secs. If there's still a peak give it a few more stirs. If it breaks it's circular shape, I'm sorry, but you'll have to try again. Unbaked, failed macaroon mixture makes a great semi-freddo base. Just add double cream.

Pipe the rounds onto non-stick baking paper. Allow to crust for 20 minutes to 2 hours. Bake in a pre-heated oven (160-170 degrees; it depends on your oven, but it has to be a convection oven, no fan assists) for 7-9min. Keep your eye on it. When/if you see the "feet", breathe a sight of relief.

Macaron chilling on the window sill.