After seeing the darling chocolate macarons by Gilly over at Humble Pie, I was reminded of the fact that I hadn’t tried making macarons in a very long time. I last blogged about them in August last year, but the truth is that I had tried them a few more times with rather disasterous results. They came out too hard, lopsided, lacked shine, and exploded – just about everything that could go wrong did. I was beating my head against the wall when I recalled that Helen over at Tartlette had emailed me the recipe from a French food blog that she used to make her beautiful little domes, so I decided that I had nothing to lose, so what the heck!

(there’s a lot of cross-blog lovin’ going on here, huh?)

Now, seeing as I’d never actually eaten a macaron other than the ones I’d made, I really had no idea what a macaron should taste like, but after trying this recipe I could see just exactly what they should be like, and why the results of this recipe impressed me more than those from A Traveler’s Lunchbox – Helen was right in saying that the recipe with the cooked meringue gave a wonderful result. I found that these all had perfect domes and perfect little frilly feet. They also were unbelievably soft – a thin crackly crust that gives with a slight amount of pressure, giving in to a delicious, creamy inside with just a hint of chewiness. The entire cookie seems to just dissipate in your mouth!

I found that this recipe gives a fair bit of batter, so I thought I’d make a few different flavours. I had considered making some macarons with Asian flavourings, but my search for chestnut puree had been futile and the can of adzuki paste (sweetened red bean paste) that I thought I had in the pantry was nowhere to be found. The other combination that I considered was sweet potato macarons with honey cream, but a search for a recipe to make sweet potato powder with the purple Japanese sweet potatoes in my pantry yielded no results so that wasn’t going to happen any time soon either.

So, what was left?

I sighed with disappointment and reached for my matcha powder and black sesame seeds. Rather predictable flavourings for Asian sweets, but they were all that I had access to at 11pm last night, so I decided not to beat myself up too much over it. I divvied up the macaron batter into 3 seperate bowls and added my flavourings – vanilla paste into one, dutch-processed cocoa powder into the second and matcha/green tea powder into the third. I also decided to try making the meringue-based italian buttercream instead of my regular buttercream, and mixed the same flavourings into that to match the macarons themselves.

Though all were delicious, my favourites of the 3 flavours is without a doubt the green tea and black sesame macarons. The green tea is beautifully scented with just the barest hint of bitterness to offset the sweetness of these delights, and the black sesame seeds sprinkled on top provide a burst of sesame-flavoured nuttiness with each bite!

They may not be the easiest cookies in the world to make, but they are a lot easier than their reputation holds them to be, and I’d highly recommend that you give them a try! Come on, what have you got to lose? Especially when these morsels are to be gained

Basic Macaron Recipe (adapted from Tartlette)

Ingredients
120g egg whites, at room temperature
35g caster sugar
150g almond meal
150 pure icing sugar **
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/8 tsp salt

Sugar syrup
150g caster sugar
50g water

** Pure icing sugar is also known as confectioners sugar in the US. Please bear in mind, this is different to soft icing mixture. Pure icing sugar is just powdered sugar, whereas soft icing mixture is a mixture of sugar powder and corn starch. You cannot use soft icing mixture to make these as it will make the cookies too firm and dry, giving entirely the wrong texture.

1. Preheat oven to 160 degees C – make sure you do not use a fan-forced setting. Sift together the pure icing sugar and almond meal, and set aside, then mix in 60g of the egg whites till well-combined.

2. Add the salt and cream of tartar to the remaining egg whites (salt helps thicken the proteins and cream of tartar helps to stabilize the aerated mixture) and beat till foamy. Add the caster sugar 1 tbsp at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat till mixture forms soft peaks. Do not overbeat at this stage.

3. Boil together the sugar and water for the sugar syrup till it reaches 110 degrees C, then pour into the egg whites in a slow and steady stream, beating continously. Continue beating the mixture till it is completely cool.

4. Carefully fold the almond mixture into the cooled meringue till evenly combined, and add any flavourings you wish. Continue to fold the mixture till it is soft and flows like magma – when you create a peak it should slowly but completely dissolve to a flat surface.

5. Pipe the macaron batter into even circles on a lined baking tray, leaving 5cm between each cookie, and make sure you don’t pipe any air bubbles into each form as that will cause them to ‘explode’ very much like a volcano while they’re baking. Sit them for about 15 – 20 minutes so that the surface can dry and they can form a skin.

6. Bake them for 13 – 15 minutes, then remove and place in the freezer for 10 minutes – this will make them cool quickly and make it easy to remove them from the baking paper. Carefully peel off the baking paper and pipe buttercream onto half the cookies, using the remaining half to sandwich them.

Italian Buttercream
2 egg whites (60mL)
1/3 cup plus 1 tbsp castor sugar
60g unsalted butter at room temperature, roughly diced

Whisk together the egg whites and sugar. Set the bowl bain-marie style (over a pot of simmering water) and heat the mixture, whisking often, for 3-5mins or till it feels warm and sugar has dissolved.

Remove from heat and whisk on high speed till stiff and shiny. Add the butter slowly, one cube at a time, and continue to mix till all the butter is combined. Add any flavourings and refrigerate till firm enough to pipe.

These can be flavoured with any variety of different flavours, so think about what combinations you might want to try and let your imagination run wild!

[tags]macarons, cookies, mignardises, sweets, dessert, french cuisine, baking, recipes[/tags]

People who have tried this recipe:

• Sharon from Lots of Sprinkles
• Adski from Totally Addicted To Taste

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Okay, the fact that I’m STILL giggling at my own cleverness with the title of this post is proof enough that I am a lover of all things cheesy – of both food and non-foody things. Why am I giggling and why is the title so titillating? Because, dear reader, today’s recipe is for passiofruit yo-yos! Geddit? Geddit? Haw! Laugh with me!

*listens to the crickets chirping in the distance*

Unfortunately folks, this is not my drawing – I just added the tagline. God bless clip art

That’s enough kidding around, onto a topic that’s a little more serious. When Barb over at Winos & Foodies announced her LIVESTRONG event “A Taste of Yellow“, I made a note that I had to participate, as it’s a wonderful event trying to raise awareness for cancer and that’s definitely a cause that I want to get behind. Whilst I have been blessed not to have this terrifying disease strike anyone in my family, it is still one that affects the lives of thousands of people across the globe, often appearing with no warning whatsoever.

There are many different forms of cancer and it can attack almost any part of the body, with devastating effects if it is not diagnosed and treated immediately. There have been many advances made in the treatment of this disease, but more research needs to be done to find safer and more effective methods of treatment, as well as seeking out ways to prevent it, and making sure the preventions are acessible to those who may be affected.

To my Australian readership, I’d just like to bring this to your attention as well – the Australian government has initiated a vaccine program for cervical cancer which is free for women from the age of 12 to 26, and is running from July 2007 till June 2009. Now, whilst I’m not going to get into the sheer idiocy of offering such a limited program for a cancer which is recognized to be the 5th most common cancer to affect women worldwide, if you or those you know are eligible, you should take advantage of the government’s generosity in this instance.

Now, when I started thinking about participating in this event, I have to admit that I was quite lost as to what I’d make. Any yellow food? Where would I even start? Squash? Corn? Cheese? Bananas? Lemon? Eggs? So many different options! However, while sitting in front of the open fridge and musing at it’s contents, it was the lonely little container of passionfruit juice which grabbed my attention. Now, this juice first debuted on my blog a few months ago when I made my passionfruit souffle, so it seemed fairly appropriate that I use the product for another food blogging event Right, so I had my ingredient, what was I actually going to do with it? Nothing in my cookbooks really grabbed my attention, so I turned to my trusty collection of Australian Gourmet Traveller magazines and started flipping through them, and came across a section in the March edition which was all about passionfruit!

Hello! Was this a sign from above, or what?

After a bit of humming and hawing, I finally decided to give the recipe for passionfruit yoyos with white chocolate and passionfruit ganache a try, and aren’t I glad I did? These cookies are very short and crumbly, and combined with the ganache they work very well! The ganache itself is the winner in this particular recipe, with the sweetness of the white chocolate very nicely tempered by the acidity of the passionfruit, and if you have any ganache left over, there’s the added bonus of just being able to eat plain

Passionfruit Yo-Yos with White Choc & Passionfruit Ganache
(from the March edition of Australian Gourmet Traveller)

Ingredients (makes about 25-30 cookies)
180g unsalted butter, softened
90g pure icing sugar (confectioners sugar)
80mL passionfruit juice **
225g all-purpose flour
100g corn starch

Ganache Ingredients
90mL pouring cream
45mL passionfruit juice
180g white chocolate

** To make passionfruit juice, blend the pulp to crack the seeds, then strain through a fine sieve. 12 regular-sized passionfruit should yield approx 1 cup/250mL juice.

1. Make the ganache first – combine the cream and passionfruit juice and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then turn the stove off and remove the pan. Place the chocolate in a bowl and strain the hot cream mixture over the top, constantly whisking till smooth. Refrigerate for 4 hours, or till thickened.

2. Beat the butter and sugar till light and fluffy, then add the passionfruitjuice and beat till combined. Sift together the flour and corn starch, then stir into the creamed butter till just combined. Shape into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

3. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Roll out the pastry to 5mm thick, and using a 3cm-diameter circular cutter, cut rounds and place on baking paper-lined baking trays. Bake for 8-10 minutes or till just golden.

4. Remove from the oven and cool the cookies on the tray for 5 minutes before moving them to a wire rack to cool completely.

5. Spread half the cookies with about 1 tsp of ganache, sandwich the remaining cookies and put them in the fridge to set. Iced yoyos will last about 3-4 days, uniced they will last for up to 1 week in an airtight container.

6. Make yourself a pot of earl gray tea with a dash of lemon and honey, and indulge in a few little cookies for an afternoon or after-dinner sweet treat!

[tags] passionfruit, ganache, biscuits, cookies, a taste of yellow, livestrong, recipes, sweets, desserts[/tags]

• Cindy from Where’s The Beef?

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