Les Macarons, Parte Deux

 

Last week, a co-worker and I decided to try a macaron-baking class at Sur La Table, a new kitchen store in the area.  I tried making macarons on my own before (and blogged about it here) getting only about 50% of the way there.  There is a TON of information about making them online, but for some reason most of it just seemed mystical and not really helpful to me (although it always really tried to do the opposite.)  So I thought perhaps a class was the way to go.  I'd get some guidance and some pointers, and come home with recipes, too!

The class was held after work.  In 3 hours, we made 3 kinds of macarons: hazelnut, regular almond, and raspberry.  The instructor was very confident and encouraging, but his advice was not always the most sound, so they only came out so-so. They tasted very good--don't get me wrong--but didn't look right at all.  (I thought I had a picture but I guess I don't.)   I decided to continue experimenting at home, and this weekend I got to it. 

First up was trying pistachio again.  I love pistachios, and I had an annoying little bit left rolling around in the cupboards.  So I grabbed and cleaned out my coffee grinder and ground them in there with a little powdered sugar, and then subbed that for part of the almond flour (I had storebought already ground almond flour.) I then followed the recipe we did at the store, taking care to make my batter a bit runnier.  I baked them all on one giant sheet, and I used parchment paper to bake them on (usually you use a Silpat, but I only have one and it is small).  Here's the result:

Pros:  nice "macaron-y" shape, with the little feet.
Cons: they spread out a little on piping, so they ended up touching (as you can see in the front).  Some of them also got a little too brown. I also got peaks, which I tried to get rid of, as I had been instructed in the class, by dabbing at them with a damp finger.  This just caused discoloration at best and little eruptions at worse, as you'll see in the next batch:

The second batch was the basic almond recipe, no other additives.  The ones we made at the store kind of looked like these:  fat and chunky, with peaks.  They look more like hamburgers than macarons.  I'm not sure what makes them chunky--they didn't seem to be piped any higher than the others--but the little bump at the top was from dabbing at a peak with a wet finger.  I discovered that doing that seemed to ruin the cookie's ability to dry properly.  I let them sit an hour and they all dried EXCEPT the one little spot on top.    That spot turned into that thing on the top of the cookie.

I also tried the instructor's edict to always, always, ALWAYS bake two pans at a time with this batch.  That didn't work so well for me either--one batch burned on the bottom, even though I rotated and switched pans half through, and I baked them for only 8 minutes rather than the 10-15 suggested.  So much for that.  Maybe with some other oven.

Finally, at 12:30 this morning, I put my final batch in the oven--a big stinking pan of hazelnut macarons.  And:

THEY CAME OUT NEAR PERFECT!  YAY!  I used the one pan, watched the bake time closely, folded the batter a little longer to get it runnier.

I filled all the cookies with Italian Meringue Buttercream:  chocolate and rosewater for the pistachio cookies, chocolate and strawberry for the almond cookies, and chocolate and vanilla for the hazelnut cookies.  Took them to work today and they went over quite well.  I'm pleased.  I still have a few kinks to work out but I think I am more on my way. 

Now:  anyone know what I can do with 16 lonely egg yolks?

TWD: Not-Really-Mini Madeleines

Oh my word!  I nearly forgot to post today!

These TWD selections get better and better.  Out of our two selections this week, I chose to go with the Mini Madeleines selection by Di.  I was originally going to go with the squash pie, but upon realizing that it was a pie with squash chunks in it--a fruit pie with squash chunks--I simply couldn't bring myself to waste the ingredients.  I just wouldn't be likely to eat that.  I don't even know what butternut squash tastes like!

So I went with the madeleines.  I bought a pan--a regular-sized one--to make some with a TWD recipe some months ago and never got around to it.  So I put it into use, making 12 regular cookies instead of 36 minis.

And now? I would like to make them every day.  They were very easy to make--just whisking (by hand) a few things that are easily found in anyone's larder.  Then you don't even have to hustle the batter into the oven--it goes into the fridge.  I left mine there one day.

The hardest part was flouring the molds.  The batter itself just spooned in and went right into the oven.

They baked up beautifully...

and tasted divine, even two days later.

Just perfect.  I love them!

I'm so pleased, I'm gonna do as promised and give extra quilt-in-progress photos:

(I sneaked in to the office to sandwich on Sunday.  The life of the single and impoverished and living in tiny apartments!  Shhhhh.)

Another pic of the top, a bit closer up:

and the back, though this isn't a good photo color-wise.  Think shades of pink and coral, ok?

It's all sandwiched and trimmed now, ready to be quilted. At some point.

TWD: Chocolate Oatmeal Drops

Boy, talk about a sleeper.

These cookies did not look or sound very interesting.  Actually, they looked like something had gone horribly wrong--a great heap of cookie with a thin, lacy band around it.  hmm.

In a fit of TWD Remorse, I made these the same night I made the scones.  The scones were old hat for me;  I've been making that recipe for years.  These were new.  We got no pictures, so I couldn't tell much about them other than I had everything necessary on hand, and they sounded brownie-like in preparation.

First, there was melting of butter and sugar and chocolate.

That went fast.

Whisk, whisk in dry stuff and stir in oatmeal.  I added some walnuts, too, just because.

Then I scooped onto pans by tablespoons as directed, and here is where things got weird:

For some unknown reason, my dough got all slimy. Eww.  I baked them anyway, to see what would happen.

They didn't seem to spread much.

I was afraid they would be raw in the middle, but they were not!  They were actually chewy brownielicious goodness that I will most definitely make again.  I wasn't expecting much but they very much exceeded expectations.  Go 'head, then, Caroline and Claire!  (They have the recipe up, if you are interested.)

TWD August Recap and Excuses, Excuses

Hi y'all.

I'm delinquent.  Forgive me.  I didn't do this week's TWD assignment, nor Pies with That, and I haven't been posting for a bit.  There has been a lot of thumb-twiddling, sewing of garments, gnashing of teeth, and a lot of rushing around here at Chez OC.  I have a new job in a new industry in a new state and am in the middle of a very long and drawn out (to me anyway) while simultaneously hyperkinetic and frantic corporate-sponsored relocation four hours away, the panicky past couple of weeks special courtesy of an oh so helpful relocation consultant who doesn't seem capable of getting it together in general, much less doing things and contacting people on time.  I kinda thought the point of having a relocation consultant was to make new employees' long distance moves easier and less stressful, but apparently that's what I get for thinking.  Pah.

Usually my sister comes with me when I am moving to a new place, which distracts me some from my anxiety, but this time she is all "blahblah school blahblahblah clinicals blahblahblahblah work" so I'm totally on my own this time.  The movers are going to pack my stuff tomorrow at the crack of dawn-- "We'll be there between 7 and 8 am!!"  chirped the dispatcher, and I'm like "deeearrr Looooord WHHHHYYY, no one EVER needs to be in my space before 8 am"--, and somehow this is more frightening and anxiety inducing than doing it myself.  And I HATE packing. I've never had the moving company pack my stuff before, and while I have no desire to do it myself, I also have little idea of what to expect beyond the advice everyone gives to sequester anything you don't want packed even if you think it's obvious that it does not go.  They won't come to move the things till Wednesday.  It will be very odd, I think, to be in my apartment, the one I've been settled in all year, with EVERYTHING in boxes for two days, and then on Thursday be in a new one in yet another new state (at this rate I don't know that I'll ever get back to Tennessee) with next to nothing for I don't know how many more.  I'm not a fan of uncertainty about my stuff.

Anyway, I did have a few words for August's TWD selections, 'cause I did do them.  

1) Oatmeal Breakfast Bread

This was kind of fun to make, as it allowed me to clear the cabinets some.  It was fast to mix, but baking and cooling were a bit cumbersome for a "breakfast" bread.  I didn't really like the end result, however--probably because instead of unsweetened applesauce I used sweetened apple butter, and neglected to reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe.  D'oh!  Bleah.  I nearly went into a diabetic coma.  User error sent it to the trash immediately.

2) Custardy Peach Tart
It was bitter hard not to make this one.  I actually made it last summer as I was trying to work my way up to making pies.  I do recall that it was one of my favorite things from the book ever--so easy and so delicious and it kept pretty well, too!  Alas, my need to clear the cabinets meant that I had no peaches in the house or much in the way of ingredients for crust or custard.  It's been some lean times 'round here folks, as I've been waiting to move.  Sadness!  It's not living when you can't make a tart just 'cause.  It just ain't.


3)Espresso Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

This week I was like "hang it all--I'm sick of waiting,"  and got myself some chocolate and made these.  I don't pass up too many opportunities for shortbread, people.  I made the recipe just as specified and they are so simple and so good.  I am eating the last of them now.

So that's where I am.  Not very exciting, but there you have it.  I hope that I can get settled in The City That Makes (what exactly?) very soon so I can get back to posting regularly! Now if you'll excuse me I am off to a three hour nap so I can then get up in the middle of the night and freak out about feeling not ready for the packers--whoooosahhhh.

TWD: Chewy Chunky Blondies and Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream

I still am here and I still am baking:

and sewing, too

sometimes AT THE SAME TIME:

 (note box o' cupcakes at top left)

though in a rather slapdash, haphazard fashion.  Let the record show that I did indeed make the TWD blondies from two weeks ago, and all I have to say about those is YES PLEASE.

I felt sort of extravagant making them when I still had 2/3 of a very good cake in the fridge, but I made them anyway and said banana cake was neglected and forgotten.  It still takes up space forlorn and neglected in my fridge. 

I did not make last week's gingered carrot cookies, because 1) ew, and 2) wut? and 3) come on--it was my birthday that week!  I made vanilla buttermilk cupcakes instead.  Much more appropriate.

I just made this week's selection, a chocolate ganache ice cream.  I am finishing up a yellow plum sorbet I made for my birthday, so I kind of rode the fence. I like ice cream, don't get me wrong, but I have a Very Bad Habit of forgetting that I have any about the house, and never eating it.  I just don't ever really crave the stuff.  This ice cream was kinda fussy, too.  But I think I like it. 

First, we had to make a chocolate ganache.  Easy enough except I only had 2 ounces of chocolate on hand so I ran out and got a bar of Lindt.  This didn't give me 6 ounces;  it gave me 5.5.  Terrified of jacking up the ganache (it wasn't until later that I realized it wasn't a true 1:1 ganache anyways)  I cut the recipe by 1/4.  My cream had a "Sell by!" date of July 11, but considering that there is also a recipe for sour cream ice cream in the book, too, and considering that I TOTALLY did not feel like going out for more, I went with it.  It tasted fine.

Then I made the "custard,"  which I remembered this time is very thin, and mixed it in with the ganache and put it to chill overnight.

This morning, I fired up Ol'Red and got ready to pour in the custard.  Except there wasn't going to be any pouring.

There could be spooning, and scraping, and cursing, and coaxing, but no pouring.  The custard was really thick.  Like the spoon stood up in it thick.  I somehow got it all in and let it go for about 18 minutes.  I espied a package of almonds sitting limply in a corner looking delinquent, so I put them to work and dumped them in, because everything is better with almonds in it. 

I have the hardest time getting my ice cream to freeze evenly in my Cuisinart.  The mix on the walls and bottom freezes very hard, but in this case little happened to the bulk of the recipe, which was in the center.  Anyone figured out a workaround for this?  I just gave up when it seemed lighter and colder and put it in a container for freezing.

I tried some later in the afternoon.  It is very smooth and very rich and velvety, like frozen chocolate mousse.  I like it!  It's a little much for every day, but I wouldn't mind making it for company.

*notice*  I am trying my darnedest to stay on schedule but posting might be come a bit intermittent over the next few weeks, 'cuz I am moving.  As I so often do.

Thanks this week go to Katrina at Baking and Boys for picking the recipe!  Good choice, good lady.

TWD: Brrrrownies

or however they are spelled.

I was major mega OMFG Dudes excited about this week's recipe (chosen by Karen) because it involves two of my fave things:  1) homemade brownies and 2) York Peppermint Patties.  Both fall squarely under the category of Things I Cannot Have In The House Because I Will Eat Them For Dinner And That Behavior Is Not Becoming In A Person Past Thirty. 

The recipe promised to be a quick one, too, extra special hooray good because I was already distracted in my first week back home by a couple of new acquisitions:

Visiting my friend Maura last week got me excited and determined again to work on sewing and quilting. She is absolutely ridonkculous with making fabulous stuff, and while I'll never get there she sure makes it look like fun.  I had tried sewing as a kid but quickly got frustrated with things not turning out as I wanted them to,  and for some unknown reason it never seemed to occur to me to ask my grandmother, who I only lived with my whole childhood and who only sewed like, I don't know, all the time for assistance or lessons.  I can vividly remember watching her lay out and cut material for dresses and quilts on the kitchen table (as well as occasionally reaching into a pile of cloth and coming up stuck with pins, realizing too late I had just tried to grab her latest quilt-top in progress).  Anyway, I bought the machine from a collector here.  I think I shall name it Phyllis, in homage to her 1971 birth.  I got the cabinet at a local thrift store and spent all week stripping, refinishing, and repainting it.  It was a lot of work but I think it came out pretty well.  And now I have a bunch of books and am blithely neglecting most everything else in my fervor to sew stuff. 

But I did squeeze in time to make the brownies.  I melted the chocolate and butter in the microwave instead of the stove.  I only had 2 ounces of unsweetened chocolate, so I did the "cocoa +butter" sub for the other ounce.

It was all good till I added the eggs, then it seized up something awful.  Is it because the eggs were cold?

The finished batter was still really thick--and it only thinly covered the bottom of the pan.

When they were done, I was dismayed.  Oh, word?  THIS is what they are supposed to look like?

These are without a doubt the fugliest things I have ever baked.  But they are also so so SO good!  Perfect chewy (NOT fudgy) consistency, though I wasn't super thrilled that they were impossible to get out of the pan.  And peppermint patties!  YUM.  I would like to be able to share them but they are just too hideous.  Maybe with a smear of icing--and a better method to keep them from sticking.  Or maybe i just make other stuff--chocolate tarts and such--for company and keep these ALL. TO. MYSELF. *sinister laugh*

TWD April Mega-Post: I live, and I bake. I just don't post on Monday night.

So, um, yeah.  Sorry for the unannounced hiatus.  This is a fairly hectic time for me;  I'm traveling much, MUCH more than usual for the next couple of months. In the past two weeks I've been to New Orleans, Durham, and DC, and will be in Nashville and Memphis this upcoming weekend.  Am also hoping to make it to Charleston, Gatlinburg, and Burlington very soon!  Though I've been a-wanderin', I have been keeping up with the Tuesdays With Dorie challenges for April.  I usually realize on Tuesday night that I didn't post, can't find my memory stick or don't have access to wireless or am deaddog tired, and don't get it up here.  But I shall make up for my lack, like so, like NOW:

1. Swedish Visiting Cake

As a preteen, I was obsessed with thoroughly charmed by Cheaper by the Dozen, the chronicle of the Gilbreth family of efficiency experts and their 12 (well, 11;  one died young) children.  Do not ask me why.  Anyway, one of the things I most remember from the book (written by two of the middle children) was that Lillian Gilbreth, their mother, despite having impressively produced twelve children and lived to prosper in a fantastic career, could not cook to save her life, except for a very few things.  One of the things she could make was a certain kind of apple cake, a sort of quick-fix-one-bowl operation that was her husband, Frank's favorite thing.  Sometimes when they were up late at night, coming up with more bizarro ways to streamline their chaotic home life, she would throw together this apple cake to snack on. 

All that to say, while I was making this cake, I kept thinking of that moment, which I always found really touching.  This is the kind of cake you could replicate that with.  "I'm kinda hungry."  *rummage through cabinet*  "uhhh, I can make some cake real quick.  You want some cake?"  "Ok, that'll work."  If you cook at all, everything you need, you probably have on hand.  Only one bowl and the very laziest of mixing is required.  You don't even need to have a proper cake pan.  You don't need icing or glaze or sauce.  (and I wouldn't really even bother.)  You can bang it out in under an hour from "Huh.  I'm getting a little hungry" to eating.  And IT IS FABULOUS.  

I got my lesson about those dried lemon peels when making the Honey Wheat Cookies, so real zest for the lemon sugar today.  I had decided to make only half the recipe, as I was still feeling the (pleasant) effects of eating real Southern food again for four straight days, so I thought I should have some restraint.   I still went with a whole lemon, though;  just made it a small one.  

I used both almond and vanilla extracts in the batter.  I don't have a cast-iron skillet (I know, bad Southerner, I know;  they're kind of a pain in the butt and I don't make cornbread that often, ok?)  so what to do?  Well, I figured a 6-inch pan would do just fine, so I used my favorite one and topped the cake with the slivered almonds I had in the pantry (could have sworn I had more sliced ones in there!)  and sprinkled with vanilla sugar.  Came out beautifully and smelled SO VERY GOOD.

And, I am not one to gossip, but it is possible that this delicious lemony almondy thing might have disappeared in two days.  I don't really know, though.  That's just hearsay.  It is also possible that the baker has had to restrain herself from making another every day since.  You know how people talk.

2. Sweet Cream Assortment of Real Dairy Product Biscuits

I've recounted before my biscuit making woes.  No more, those days.  This recipe was SO EASY:  mix up some dry stuff, pour in some cream till it feels right, pat, cut, bake--and SO PERFECT that I could just cry.  Ok, so they aren't buttery, but they are fluffy and flaky and tender and brown lightly and freeze beautifully, and have just the right amount of sugar to make them taste like something other than flour.  I bought more cream yesterday so that I can make more and stash them in the freezer. 

Evidence of my dedication to TWDing:

And it's not the afternoon, people.  I was heading out of town the next afternoon, but I wanted to get these done before going.  I made the dough, cut out rounds and froze them on the sheet overnight/overmorning.

They looked pretty good but I wasn't expecting much.  I had run out of cream before the dough looked wet enough, so I added half-and half and then whole milk till it seemed right.

The next day, I tentatively baked a couple.  Lo!  Behold!  

The thumbs, they are up.

3.  Chockablock Cookies

And NOW I am on schedule again.  These are some nice little "cookies,"  and by "cookie" I mean "roundish, sweet baked conglomeration of totally random stuff you dug out of the pantry held together by butter and sugar and flour."  For some reason, I kept putting these cookies off.  I'd take out the butter and an egg (I also made a 1/2 recipe here) and had the shortening out of the freezer for days, but every day I'd think "eh, never mind,"  and put them all back. 

Finally I forced myself to do my mise en place.  I wish I'd gotten a photo.  But it involved:  chocolate bars, walnuts, almonds, pecans, dried apricots, craisins, currants, coconut and oats.  Yeesh.  In comparison, there was alarmingly little batter, and what there was was very soft.  It seemed to just be there to keep the cookies together.  

The jury's still out on these.  I've eaten nearly all of them.  They get cakier as time goes on.  I don't really get all the molasses aversion out there (seriously people:  HOW CAN YOU NOT LIKE MOLASSES?!  It is the Alpha and the Omega.  It is what honey wishes it had the nerve to be), so I liked the flavor of the cookie.  They are tasty. 2 things:  I already mentioned my aversion to "stuff on top of stuff" and these qualify.  Also, I would think the success of the cookie would depend heavily on the particular combination of ingredients, and that is just too much plotting possibility for a chronic overplanner such as myself.  I'm not that easygoing about my projects; and that, my friends, is why I bake.  They were very fast, though, and simple to make.  This gets a "eh, maybe revisit". 

Thank yous to Nancy, Melissa, and Mary for their selections! 

TWD: Dulce de Leche Duos

 a plateful of WIN+++++

More cookies!  This week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe, chosen by Jodie, are two dulce de leche flavored butter cookies sandwiched with more of the caramelly spread. 

Instead of trying to buy dulce de leche, I decided it was simpler and faster to just make my own.  I've done so several times before and it's so easy, I have a hard time believing it is at all authentic (weird, I know). But you get something usable and yummy from it, so....eh.  I try not to obsess too much about it.

Usually when I make dulce de leche, I do so by stripping a can of condensed milk, sitting the unopened can in a big ol' pot full of water, bringing the water to a boil, turning it down to a simmer, and letting it boil for a good 3-4 hours.  I've done this several times with no casualties yet, but I am also careful to keep the water topped up and not to open the can until it is plenty cool.  The result is a nice soft, smooth, medium brown sauce that thickens upon standing.

stovetop dulce de leche

This time, I decided to try it a couple of new ways.  First, the oven method, which involves opening the can and pouring the contents into a pie plate or casserole dish, setting it in a hot water bath, covering and baking until it's as you like it.

 I think you're supposed to use a flatter dish, but this is what I had. 

I baked mine for about two hours.  Doing it this way meant that I could add stuff if I wanted;  I threw in a cinnamon stick to infuse mine but I bet a healthy dose of salt would be good, too.  I found that I had to beat this dulce de leche to get it to be smooth; and it was the lightest in color and the most liquid of the three.

 oven-baked dulce de leche

The second new method was much like my stove version, just in the Crock-Pot rather than on the stove.

I place a can in a crock filled with water on low overnight, and then turned it off and let it sit in the water all day till cool.  I let mine cook longer than most, almost 12 hours, and so it came out quite dark and spreadable, but still tasted caramelly rather than burned (it was close, though;  another hour would probably have killed it).

 Crockpot dulce de leche

I wasn't thrilled with the big ol' ring-o-rust left in my crock, but it washed out without a problem.

Since several commenters at TWD complained that the cookies themselves needed more flavor, I decided to use the superdark dulce de leche in them. I think it was a good decision, because I felt the cookies were quite caramelly and buttery.  YUM.

 This gives you a better sense of the color of it.

My dough was really soft.  I mean REALLY soft.  So soft I was sure I had forgotten some important dry ingredient.  You can't really tell here, but it was somewhere between "cookie" and "pound cake" in consistency. 

I was very afraid to scoop the cookies, but I did so anyway.  It firmed up as time went on,  but even the initial softness came out just fine.

I got way more cookies than needed for 30 sandwiches out of the dough;  so many that I lost count.  When it came time to sandwich them, I mixed the dark, stiff crockpot stuff with the lighter, saucier oven stuff to get a very nice medium filling.

Filling was easy.  The cookies came out nice and round, so it wasn't too hard to match cookies, and the filling hardened enough to make them movable and packable soon after sandwiching.

 I took the resulting cookies to a party.  Only a few people tried them, as a bunch of other people had brought storebought desserts, but I did successfully pawn all the cookies off on my hostess, except a few I had at home and tried later...and was not happy till I finished them all.  I didn't know what to expect and didn't expect much but OH MY WORD THESE ARE DELICIOUS.  They were buttery and chewy and indeed, instead of being cloying the little layer of filling really makes them shine.  I tried a bit of Nutella on one cookie and I have to agree with Kristen and Becky O.:  it didn't really work.  Never thought there was anything Nutella could not improve, but there you have it.  You must either eat these plain or use dulce de leche.

Fortunately, I am too lazy to make three cans of dulce de leche very often and it's hard to find in the stores here, so I don't think I'll have a problem with slipping into the kitchen to make any more soon, but one day.  ONE DAY.  Yum.