The Dazzling Distraction: Artistic Food

So as you know over the last few days I have been making many different coloured macaroons for Paul and Cheryl's house warming party. I was reading through a fabulous cook book by Justin North again called French Lessons I got a lovely recipe for chocolate macaroons. The thing I like about this book is that he doesn't just list the recipes but he actually explains a whole bunch of techniques for the reader to understand why and how to do things. It's definitely a book to get your fingertips on.

This is Justin North's Recipe that I absolutely love:

Macaroons
makes 50 mini or 25 medium-sized macaroons
prep time 20minutes cook time 15 minutes (for me it took a lot longer to prep and then fiddle together at the end.)

Ingredients
125g ground almonds aka almondmeal
225g icing sugar
3 egg whites
60g caster sugar
zest of 1 lemon (optional) (i used lemon zest only in my lemon flavoured one.)

Line 2 baking sheets with greaseproof paper. (I found that if you put two layers of paper down they don't burn as easy on the tray).
Sift the ground almonds and sugar together into a large mixing bowl. In another bowl, whisk the egg whites and sugar to stuff peaks and stir in the lemon zest if using.

Use a large spatula to gently fold the sifted ingredients into the egg whites. (Don't get impatient this is very important to fold and not stir! - think of sponge cakes if your have made one.)
Spoon the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a medium-sized nozzle. (I just used two teaspoons) Pipe neat little mounds on the baking sheets - about the size of a 10cent coin for mini macaroons or a 50 cent piece for medium size. (When I had them all on the tray i tapped the tray a few times so they looked smooth and even on the top.) Leave to stand for 15-20minutes, until a skin forms on the surface.

Preheat your oven to 140oC. Bake the macaroons for 12-15minutes until they have formed an outer shell. The perfect macaroon is crisp on the outside and slightly chewy in the centre. Leave to cool on the baking tray for a few minutes then carefully transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely. (When you get your macaroons from the oven, don't be afraid if they look underdone. If they look a bit wobbly on the bottom this is fine they will continue cooking on the tray. I also found that sliding the baking paper carefully off the tray and have them cool on the bench is better than the wirerack as the wirerack leaves dents.)

When ready to serve, sandwhich pairs of macaroons together with Creme Patissiere (This is another one of Justin's fantastic recipies but you could really fill it with whatever filling you want to get creative with!)

Chocolate Macaroons
Sift 20g of cocoa powder in with the ground almonds and the icing sugar and don't include the lemon zest. Sandwich them together with Chocolate Ganache.

Chocolate Ganache - Justin North's way:
(makes 500g)
200ml cream
40g liquid glucose
240g bitter chocolate - at least 70% cocoa solids.
1/2 tablespoon Armagnac, cognac, (If desired)

Combine the cream and glucose in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the chocolate until melted and smooth. Stir in the alcohol if desired and leave to cool.
This will keep up to 2 week.

Two fabulous flavours I did make were chocolate orange and chocolate mini, all I did was add either orange essence or mint essence to the ganache. Just a few drops and they tasted amazing!

Just a Tip:
Don't ice the macaroons with the ganache if the ganache is still hot. Getting it cold and at room temperature is ideal.

Another fabulous filling is Donna Hay's Balsamic strawberry I read in her Christmas edition magazine from last year.
All you have to do is put 1cup (320g) Strawberry Jam and 2 Tablespoons of balsamic vinegar into a small saucepan and stirring over a medium heat until thickened.
I also added 1tbs of liquid glucose to help it hold better.
I didn't think I would like the flavours at first, but what seemed like a strange combination won me over and now I really enjoy the sweet but tart flavour.

So I did have a lot of fun over the last few days. It took a lot of time and energy but in total I made 10 different flavours and at least 10 of each flavour so that was at least 100 of these little buggers!

The flavours I ended up making were:
Balsamic Strawberry, Blackberry and White Chocolate, Choc-Orange, Rasberry Rose, Passionfruit Milk Chocolate, Peanut, Dark Chocolate Mint, Lemon, Vanilla, and of course Chocolate.

Everything actually went ok for me in the kitchen this time... I didn't really have many dramas, however I did have to keep going back to the shops because I ran out of eggs a few times!

My only real disappointment is I saved the chocolate ones to make last. I decided to make a double batch because they are always a winner. However I ran out of icing sugar by 20g. You wouldn't think much of it... I didn't I continued on as normal. But it was too grainy and they texture was not the same. They looked like normal blobs of biscuit because they didn't have the nice shiney crisp skin that forms. I ended up putting the chocolate filling in spare blue shells.

That is all for this nice long blog. Please enjoy the photos below.

Preparation Table.

Starting to plate up.

The Final Result! The flavours:
Balsamic Strawberry, Blackberry and White Chocolate, Choc-Orange, Rasberry Rose, Passionfruit Milk Chocolate, Peanut, Dark Chocolate Mint, Lemon, Vanilla, and of course Chocolate.