Kermit turds

I was convinced that this batch was going to bomb – I had my doubts about the recipe, had my doubts about the food colouring (although this bottle only expired in 2009. I’m pretty sure there’s some pre-millennium food colouring in the house somewhere. I’m going to save that for when Farf visits. It’s vintage.), had paid too much for the ingredients, and had too much riding on them. I even made a spare dessert just in case, but, by God, they worked. They actually worked. They looked like the results of Kermit the Frog’s digestion process, but they were gooooood.

Mmm. Small puddles of Kermit vomit.

One of the above statements may give a clue as to the recipe: pistachio macaroons are expensive as hell. Working out the price per macaroon yesterday, I think I came up with 40 or 50p each, which isn’t cheap. These may actually be cheaper to buy. That said, they were delectable.

I was initially unconvinced by Nigella’s recipe – if you look at the picture in How to be a Domestic Goddess, the macaroons are all cracked and don’t have any feet. Actually, they look more like Italian macaroons... – is Nigella’s:

75g pistachio nuts                                                                          

125g icing sugar

2 large egg whites

15g caster sugar

Oven at 180 C for 10-12 minutes

You grind the pistachios and icing sugar together in the food processor (which, as with the raspberry macaroons, I think is probably the crucial step) before folding that mixture into the stiff egg whites. Then pipe (or spoon) them out, leave for 15 minutes (NO NO NIGELLA – LONGER!) and bake for about 10 minutes.

Because I was paranoid, I employed some additional tricks :

I added a teaspoon of cream of tartar (rather than baking powder, as I’ve used in previous recipes. This seemed to work better – cream of tartar is, along with baking soda, one of the two constituent ingredients of baking powder. I think cream of tartar is the acid and soda is the alkaline, which together, make bubbles and help your creation to rise). The reason this worked better may have been that the tartar stabilises the egg whites, rather than making them rise, which is what the baking soda would do.

With the raspberry macaroons I seemed to have success with whipping the egg whites in an aluminium saucepan rather than a plastic bowl (which can retain tiny particles of fat and stop the whites from getting stiff). This time I went even further and ran a cut lemon around the inside of the saucepan (cast iron this time) and dried it to make doubly sure to get rid of any grease. These macaroons turned out a little less flat than the raspberry macaroons, so I think it may have helped.

Finally, I tapped the baking sheet to eliminate any air bubbles (which didn’t completely work – the finished macaroons had some tiny bubbles in, but they did have a proper carapace though, so I’m pretty happy) and of course, let them to sit for a LOT longer than Nigella recommends – about an hour. As you can see, these weren’t so much Kermit turds as liquidised paté de Kermit.

Voilà! I was both incredibly relieved (we were having people over for dinner) and quite pleased with the result. As with the raspberry macaroons, unfortunately they took on quite a brown tinge in the oven. I tried to compensate for the ridiculous heat of our fan oven by placing a baking sheet on the top rack, but it didn’t seem to make much of a difference, unfortunately. The brown suggests a slightly faecal air (eeew. faecal air.).

Darby O'Gill and the little macaroons

They’re sandwiched together with a pistachio buttercream (not actually guacamole, although I’d made some of that too, and they were indistinguishable to my father, who loaded some pistachio buttercream onto a tortilla chip. New taste sensation.), which shoud be half fat to icing sugar, with a quarter pistachios, but I didn’t have enough icing sugar, so shoved some caster sugar in too. The result wasn’t bad exactly, but they did have a peculiarly sandy texture, that made me feel like I must be eating them at the beach...

All in all, very pleasing (strangely spreading feet and some cracked tops notwithstanding. No idea how to fix), and as it was St Patrick’s Day, I couldn’t resist the urge to strew shamrocks on the plate. How Hollywood. How embarrassing. To make up for my shame, I take the Kermit (rainbow?) connection one step further and offer you some of his friends singing a nice Irish song, one day late...

MacarAWESOMEs

Ha. Hah. Hahaha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

SUCK ON THESE, MOTHERF***ERS! 

Motherf**king Macaroons

Ok, I've calmed down now, and I apologise if the shift from my usually calm and polite demeanour offended any polite sensibilities. But you must understand that I was really starting to think I had been cursed. Turns out I wasn't, in fact, I am the John McClane of macaroons. Well, in Die Hard (Dies Hard? What's the plural? Is it like Gins and Tonic?) 1 and 2 anyway. I'm Bruce Willis and the macaroons are my estranged wife. EXCEPT THEY'RE NOT ESTRANGED ANYMORE, BABY! (It must be understood that the analogy ends here. The macaroons had better not leave me to move to California.)

Me	The Macaroons

I'm just so happy the damned things finally worked! Unfortunately I have no real idea what happened to make them so, but I did stop buying ground almonds from Lidl. Could that have been it? The recipe is that of The Great British Bake Off (which, ironically, is a French macaroon recipe...), without the cream of tartar and with a pinch of salt in its place. They are raspberry flavoured, as I was determined to try again after the sink disaster, but using powdered red food colouring instead of the six-years-out-of-date-liquid-stuff I used the last time. And I wondered why they didn't work... They're sandwiched together with a raspberry buttercream (Probably what an Hermès scarf tastes like...Actually that sounds gross. Ignore.) 


Anyway, I must admit that these still aren't perfect. In fact, their flaws are manifold. However, now that I've stopped creating crunchy bullets and started producing actual macaroons, I can at least analyse them:


Flaw 1: They're not very pink. Unfortunately I think it might be to do with my fan oven rather than any (lack of) skill on my part - I actually baked these at a lower temperature (180) than usual, for slightly longer, but they still turned out a light, sandy beige, but BEAUTIFULLY pink on the inside. Solution: more food colouring, probably...


Flaw 2: THEY HAVE FEET! Ok, obviously that's not a flaw (if you understand that macaroons are meant to have feet, that is. If you don't, I admit it sounds creepy) but they don't have very much of a foot


Flaw 3: They're pretty flat. This could mean that they were either undermixed, or overmixed. Not particularly helpful. Could also have been cooked too long (says Ms Humble Pie) although I doubt it, since when I looked through the oven door and nearly fell flat on my back when I saw they were developing feet (I was astounded. I was convinced this batch was another dud) I opened it up to take a quick pick, to make sure I wasn't imagining things. Anyway, they were pretty flat then too.


Flaw 4: Some of the macaroons looked like the embryos of conjoined twins...

When skin grafts go wrong...

Um. I think that one is to do with the pastry chef being too lazy to use a piping bag.


Anyway, I have no doubt that the next ones will look like a train-wreck (particularly if I use lumpy raspberry jam again - there were some really unattractive blobs in these that looked like blood clots...) but I'm going rest on my laurels at the moment. I may have macaroon mix in my hair, on my glasses and down my jumper, but I'm off to don a white wife-beater and yippee-ki-yay myself with an AK-47 around some hostage situations.

That photogenic brown sludge is actually a chocolate pot. This is a deconstructed Café Gourmand

**** How many asterisks do you put into F**k? F*ck? F***? Oh, sod it, 'Fuck' will do fine.

Boyzone-aroons, or An Ode to the Irish

So first things first, I must grovel.


I have not posted on this blog since January. To my great shame there is even a half-written entry about white chocolate and raspberry macaroons yet to be posted from January. I'd like to say my excuses* are valid, but nevertheless I am hugely and unequivocally ashamed, and even more so that my partner in crime has been left to shoulder the burden.


And so, my latest batch is an ode to my fair companion and her shining race, The Irish.


It is also an ode to these men:

As you may or may not know, I have been in love with Ronan Keating since I was 7. It was at about this age that I cut out a picture of his face from a teen magazine, which I subsequently kept it in a frame by my bed for at least 3 years. My 11th birthday featured heavily a Boyzone birthday cake, and he has kept his special place in my heart even through recent Dancer-gate.


So this weekend my darling sister and I did something we've been waiting 15 years for - we finally went to see them live in concert. 


Albeit one member short (cue weeping), they did not disappoint. In fact, for their encore they appeared in the middle of the crowd wearing this:

Yes. Those are green velvet suits.

The greatest moment of the whole night (apart from about 30 seconds in, where Emma and I turned to each other in realisation that we were in the presence of greatness, as well as the incredulity of the two older ladies sat next to my sister that we had never been to see them before, probably because our reactions were classic 'crazy fan'), was when they sat on bar stools and just talked like they were down the local and it made me love them collectively more than ever.


So it seems I have been surrounded by inspirational Irish people this weekend,** and in honour of this (and in keeping with my mother's still live-and-kicking food-colouring ban), I chose to make suitably Irish (and brown) flavoured macaroons.


Boyzone-aroons (Irish Coffee)


It seems my friend over the water has been suffering under the Gaddafi-esque regime of her recipes, and in my humble opinion it is entirely the fault, as with most things, of the French. I have a theory that, in a bid to retain world domination in the patisserie stakes, they have contaminated all macaroon recipes to make the creation of a reasonable macaroon nigh on impossible.


For my Irish macaroons, I used my faithful Italian recipe and, despite creating too much syrup by being over-generous with my coffee and therefore creating a sloppy mix (and some sticky bottoms as a result), the biscuits didn't come out too shabby.

Non-too shabby macaroons alongside the biggest bowl of coffee icing ever made.

For the filling, I made a batch of Irish coffee icing, also rather runny because, again, I overdid it on the coffee (I think because the coffee-addict in me loathes the idea of pouring the remnants down the drain). And when I say 'Irish', I mean Irish. The icing I made for this batch was more whiskey than coffee, it seems, but boy is that kick fun! In fact, as an alcohol 'lite' flavour, these bode rather well for the future of the alcoholic macaroon.


All I can say is that I hope the Irish people approve of my tribute. 

The finished product.

* Including a trip to New York City (for the galleries) and New Haven (for Helen) as well as, wait for it, A JOB. Yes, that is correct, I am now a working girl, courtesy of The National Trust. However, it seems that working life does not good bloggers make.


**Quite literally. In a moment of strange yet satisfying circularity, my Boyzone programme is currently propped up on my bedside table and Mr. Keating appears to be looking at me in a particularly appealing sidelong manner. And they called it puppy love...

Chocolate caramel macaroons

I'm getting really good at making dense, almondy biscuits. They're firm and crisp, with a satisfying crunch to them, and nice, melting fillings sandwiching them together. This would be great if this were The Ministry of Dense Crunchy Biscuits, but it's not. It's supposed to be The Ministry of Goddamn Bollocking Macaroons.
The raspberry monstrosities of the weekend were very nearly the last straw, but I decided to re-approach the matter calmly and patiently. Perhaps the trouble with my macaroons is my impatience, my unwillingness to go through the steps, one by one. So today, calmly, patiently, rationally, and solemnly, I went through the steps, to make Nigella's Chocolate Macaroons:
Recipe:
125 g icing sugar
65g ground almonds
2 egg whites, whipped
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp caster sugar


Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Whip the egg whites to soft peaks, then add the caster sugar and whip til stiff. Sieve the icing sugar, almonds and cocoa powder together, and fold into the egg whites. Pipe into 5 cm rounds on a lined baking sheet, and leave for 15 minutes to form a skin. Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes. 


The finished result should look something like this:

Treacherous, lying beasts.

Would you like me to paraphrase the recipe for you? Ok, here you are "FAILURE"


I did everything. Oh, Lordy, I did. I even took extra care - blitzing the almonds, icing sugar and cocoa together to make sure there aren't any lumps, adding in a pinch of baking powder to make them rise (many recipes recommend this, or cream of tartar, or a tiny squeeze of lemon juice), leaving them to rest for longer. But did any of it work? Of course it didn't, because many moons ago, I baked a batch of macaroons on an Indian burial ground, and though those ones worked ok, Big Chief Ladurée cursed me that I should never again make recognisable macaroons til the end of my days. Oh how I laughed, at the time. And blithely started upon the next batch, only to discover I was now really good at producing spongy (and yet tooth-crackingly crunchy at the same time, how pretty) discs of carbon with no discernable feet (those are the little ruffly bits round the base of the macaroon that I have lost the ability to produce) whatsoever.

I refuse to give up though - I will persevere with my crazed internet research, and I will someday, SOMEHOW, even if I have to go back and perform inappropriate favours for Big Chief Ladurée himself*, make some decent macaroons again. In the meantime, I recommend checking out this lady. She knows what she's doing, even if many of her macaroons are a strange blue colour: Not So Humble Pie Macaroon 101


* And by golly, nevermore will I buy ground almonds from Lidl.

Raspberry and Hazelnut Macaroons

Pride goeth before a fallen macaroon

I promised another post today, so here it is before I forget/become too swept up in the delights of writing horrific PhD proposals/watching Cold Comfort Farm on Youtube/dribbling. Part of the reason I haven’t posted in so long is laziness and my ability to become distracted by absolutely anything, but the real reason is SHAME. SHAME AT MY CURSED INABILITY TO MAKE CONSISTENTLY GOOD MACAROONS. You’d think this is something we might have resolved prior to forming a blog dedicated to the blasted things. But no. Forethought is not amongst my many qualities (hence the writing of godawful PhD proposals at the last minute). Still, this may serve as a cautionary tale to other, more prepared (enough to read this prior to their attempts) acolytes.

Lesson No. 1: Macaroons are fickle bastards.

The bible of Macaroons? Time will tell...

Never assume that because you’ve made macaroons perfectly before, that it’ll turn out perfectly the next time. Experience seems to suggest that it follows a ration of one success, one flop. The recipe I used this time should have been perfect – it was from Larousse Gastronomique, for God’s sake! I am starting to be suspicious of the fact that every time I make macaroons from a French recipe (Pierre Hermé’s  insufficient 15 minutes of waiting is a case in point) they seem to flop... Far from suggesting that the French don’t know how to make macaroons, I suspect that French macaroon recipes can sense the nationality of the kitchen they’re being made in and will revolt accordingly. The ginger and nutmeg macaroons were perfectly contente to be made in my kitchen – is it because I got the base-line recipe of the BBC food website (again, see recipes tag for more). Anyway, I’ll discuss the Larousse macaroon book more anon (or perhaps Farf will, since I bought her a copy for her birthday- oops.)

So, following the recipe in the Larousse book, I decided to make salted caramel macaroons, or macarons au caramel beurre salé (please don’t delete the accent aigu from that, as my spellcheck would like, or you end up with ‘dirty butter macaroons’. Intriguing, I admit...). I have often been mocked by my taste for salt, but I reckon it’s genetic, because my mother is addicted to these babies – I made them for her birthday party. Which is probably 

Lesson No. 2: Don’t make macaroons with any pressure on you. They will sense your stress and act up accordingly. They can smell your fear. 

Le mélange treacherouse (not a word, but it works)

Making them, though, everything seemed A-OK: it’s a pretty standard recipe: 30g ground almonds per egg white etc etc. However, the recipe does get you to separate your eggs the night before. Why? Answers on a postcard please. Having learned my lesson from last time, after making the base meringuey mixture, I left the little circles of macaroon (piped with an icing bag, if you please) out for over an hour so they could form their little crusts.

Almond rice krispies. Not recommended.

And did they? No. Of course they didn’t, because they wanted to punish me. End result: nasty little flat crispy things. In fact, they tasted not unlike giant almondy rice krispies. I wept tears as salty as the dirty butter. In actual fact though, I’m not sure I was that impressed by the recipe... Salted caramel macaroons are something the big players (Ladurée, Pierre Hermé, Marcolini etc) tend to do rather well, and this was one occasion where even if the home-made bases had been up to scratch, I’m not sure they would have been as good – it’s to do with the filling. People tend to fall into two camps where these macaroons are concerned – you either adore ‘em, or you hate ‘em. The filling I made, according to the recipe (basically, make a caramel with water and sugar, let it colour slightly, then add melted salted butter and some cream) was pretty anaemic. Is the solution more salt? The solution, in my case, is always more salt. I will call them Coronary Macaroons, and they will be glorious. I have to say though, the end result did look quite pretty (after the heartache that making them induced  (NOT THE SALT CONTENT) we decided to serve them anyway) even in spite of their 2-D look, and they went down quite well, up to the point of my former English teacher (my mother’s friends all taught me at school. Weird doesn’t come into it) stealing my macaroon book so that I can’t post the full recipe...

The Macaroons of Shame:

 the redeeming feature is probably the Cath Kidson tablecloth as backdrop

p.s. I note that these, like the last two recipes, are also beige. Something must be done...

McAroons

Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry. This blog is being starved of life like a small and cute baby being denied milk and stuff. Like hats. I think the analogy is probably apt but prone to inappropriate morbidity. By way of apology, I offer thoughtful and possibly worrying news that McDonalds are about to start selling macaroons. I'm not sure how I feel about this but if they call them McAroons (which also sounds like a a form of tartan. In pastel, obviously) I think I could probably get on board:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704269004575073843836895952.html

As a better form of apology, I will provide an actual macaroon post (a cautionary tale) later on, and I might even make some macaroons tomorrow. Sorry sorry sorry sorry