The recipe used for the shells is my default that you can find here. Simply divide the batter in three portions and use the colors of your choice. For the Ruby Red Ganache Macarons, I used yellow, green and plain batter. For the Neapolitan Version I used brown, pink and plain. I added a small amount of cocoa powder to the brown component. Decorations were all made with fondant and a silicone mold, later painted with luster powder and vodka.
RUBY RED GANACHE AND JAM MACARONS
220g ruby red chocolate 80g heavy cream pinch of salt mixed fruit jam (store bought is fine)
Heat the cream in a small saucepan until bubbles form around the edges. Pour over the chocolate, add a pinch of salt, cover and let sit for five minutes. Whisk gently at first, continue whisking until the chocolate is fully dissolved. If necessary, place in the microwave at 50% power for a minute. Reserve at room temperature for 1 hour or place in the fridge for 30 minutes before using.
Fill the shells with a small dollop of jam and a circle of ganache around it. Proceed as normally, keeping macarons overnight in the fridge to mature.
The jam is a nice contrast with the sweetness of the ganache and the shells. We love this brand of jam, or I should say Phil loves it, I don’t eat jam that much, prefer to use it in recipes such as this one…
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Moving on…
STRAWBERRY GANACHE MACARONS
230g white chocolate, finely chopped 80g heavy cream 1/4 tsp strawberry natural flavor (I used Olivenation) a drop of pink food color 1 tbs strawberry jam (store bought is fine)
Heat the cream in a small saucepan until bubbles form around the edges. Pour over the chocolate, cover and let sit for five minutes. Whisk gently at first, continue whisking until the chocolate is fully dissolved, then add the jam. If necessary, place the bowl in the microwave at 50% power for a minute. Reserve at room temperature for 1 hour or place in the fridge for 30 minutes before using.
Fill the shells with a small dollop of ganache and keep the macarons overnight in the fridge to mature.
Adding a little drop of pink food gel is a good idea, otherwise the ganache tends to have a pale brownish color. Ganache fillings pair well with fruit, so both recipes today take this approach, and they are perfect for Springtime.
The path is not only short, but also pretty messy. You’ve been warned. For a very long time I’ve flirted with the idea of making a stuffed cookie in the shape of a ravioli, inspired by a gorgeous version from Helen Fletcher’s book Craving Cookies, the Quintessential American Cookie Book. She cuts hers by hand, after enclosing a square of chocolate between two sheets of dough. I decided I was going to impress her (cough, cough) with a different twist: using a ravioli press. What could possibly go wrong? I was so excited about my project that I had already a blog post shaping up in my mind. So, first things first, I took a nice picture of the weapons used in the crime.
I dreamed about my blog post going viral, even if in almost 15 years of blogging nothing has ever came close to it. In fact, viruses avoid me so much that even Covid stays safely away. Still a unicorn after all these pandemic years. Anyhow, I digress. Here is the full outcome of 420g flour, 340g butter, and a good amount of sugar to boot.
Six. Cookies. Six. Half a dozen.
The composite picture below shows the steps right before chaos. In theory, you roll the cookie dough, lay on the mold, add your filling, close with another cookie sheet, smooth everything with the cute rolling pin provided. For the square ravioli, I used Peppermint Bark, cut in four small pieces. They fit so nicely in the allotted space! But that was the last reason I would have to smile for a while…
From that point, all hell broke loose and broke loose with bangs of profanity. The cookie dough glued to the mold in perverse ways, I used every trick imaginable, including freezing the whole thing for increasing periods of time. The bond between dough and mold was likely approaching triple-covalent level. I also tried gently probing with a tiny spatula. I don’t recommend doing that. Ever.
All I could do was try again with the second mold, the round one, using a heavier hand with the flour. I opted for Nutella for the filling, which was another bad decision, as it squirted everywhere as I tried to roll the ravioli shut. Messy, sticky, horrific. I managed to get six severely abused cookies from the adventure, and thanks to the miracle of Royal icing and sprinkles they were able to make a public appearance. It is a good thing you cannot see their bottoms (enough said).
Sooooo, what did I learn from this fiasco? I firmly believe that this could be a PERFECT Technical Challenge for a certain tent… Here’s how to do it: give a list of ingredients to the poor contestants. The instructions should be kept simple:
Make a cookie dough. Use the ravioli press to make filled cookies.
As to the filling, they can use their tears and frustration. They shall have plenty to take care of all 10 cookies in the mold. So, there you go, organizers of Great British and Great American Baking Show. Free advice to guarantee great entertainment for your audience…
I shall be back, friends! I lost a battle but this war is NOT over! I shall make Helen proud!
Green. Green for Spring, green for St. Patrick, green is definitely the color of March. These macs are simple to decorate, especially if you can free-hand the piping, which unfortunately I cannot. A little stencil to airbrush the shape helped me out.
NUTELLA SHAMROCK MACARONS (from The Bewitching Kitchen)
For the shells: 200g Icing/powdered sugar (1 ⅔ cups) 115 g Almond Meal (1 + scant ¼ cup) 115 g egg whites at room temperature (approx. 4 eggs) 1/8 tsp of cream of tartar (optional) 100 g granulated sugar (½ cup) 1/8 tsp vanilla extract leaf green food gel
Line 3 heavy baking sheets with parchment/baking paper or Silpat mats. Layer the powdered/icing sugar and ground almonds/almond meal in a food processor. Pulse until the mixture looks like fine meal, about 12 pulses. Pass through a sieve and transfer to a small bowl or to a sheet of parchment/baking paper. Set aside.
Place the egg whites and cream of tartar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Make sure that the bowl and the whisk are impeccably clean. Starting on medium speed, whip the whites with the cream of tartar until they look like light foam. The whites should not appear liquid. The foam will be light and should not have any structure.
Slowly rain in the granulated sugar in five additions, trying to aim the stream between the whisk and the side of the bowl. Turn the speed up to high. Continue to whip the meringue until it is soft and shiny. It should look like marshmallow creme (marshmallow fluff). Add the vanilla and food gel color. Whip the egg whites until the mixture begins to dull and the lines of the whisk are visible on the surface of the meringue. Check the peak. It should be firm. Transfer the whites to a medium bowl.
Fold in the ground almond/almond meal mixture in two increments. Paint the mixture halfway up the side of the bowl, using the flat side of a spatula. Scrape the mixture down to the center of the bowl. Repeat two or three times, then check to see if the mixture slides slowly down the side of the bowl. Add drops of gel color and mix them briefly with a toothpick. Put the mixture in a piping bag fitted with your choice of piping tip (round, ¼ or ½ inch in diameter or 6 – 12 mm). If you don’t have a macaron mat, draw circles on baking/parchment paper about 2inches/5cm in diameter & turn the paper over before placing on the baking sheets. Pipe shells, I like to count numbers in my head and use the same count for each shell so they end up similar in size.
Slam each sheet hard four to six times on the counter/worktop. Let the unbaked macarons dry until they look dull but not overly dry. Drying time depends on humidity. In a dry climate, the macarons can dry in 15 to 20 minutes; in a humid climate, it can take 35 to 40 minutes.
While the macarons are drying, heat the oven to 300 F (150 C/130C Fan oven/Gas Mark 2). Bake one sheet at a time on the middle rack. Check in 11 minutes. If the tops slide or move (independently of the ‘feet’ when you gently twist the top), then bake for 2 to 3 more minutes. Check one or two. If they move when gently touched, put them back in the oven for 1 to 2 more minutes until they don’t move when touched. Let the macaroons cool for 10 minutes before removing from the pan. The macarons should release without sticking.
Assemble the macarons: find two macarons similar in size and add a good amount of filling to the bottom of one of them. Place the other on top and squeeze gently to take the filling all the way to the edge. Store in the fridge for 24 hours for perfect texture.
For the filling:
NUTELLA BUTTERCREAM 60g unsalted butter softened 125g powdered sugar 40g Nutella 1 to 2 tbsp heavy cream to adjust consistency
Whisk butter, powdered sugar and Nutella until light and fluffy. Adjust consistency with heavy cream, if needed. Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a open star tip. Match similar sized macaron shells with each other, fill and sandwich the cookies. Decorate the top with Royal icing in the shape of a shamrock, and if you like add a brush of gold before piping the decoration for added bling.
Comments: At first I wanted to make them filled with mint, but I have done two batches in a row with that flavor, so these went the Nutella route, which I also love… As to the decoration, I cut a small stencil to airbrush the leaf, but if you are brave and talented, skip the stencil and just go for it. Some of the steps are shown below.
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I really like the way they turned out, and hope they brought a little smile to those who got them…
Valentine’s Day is almost here! Some don’t care for it, some enjoy each minute. Whatever team you are on, here are some bakes that you can try this week, or anytime love is on your horizon… Without further ado, one recipe and eight ideas for you. Read on…
. BLUEBERRY CURD SWISS ROLL CAKE (filling adapted from Caroline’s blog)
for the decoration: 50g butter, softened 50g powdered sugar 50g egg whites 50g all-purpose flour black and red gel colors
for the cake: 130g cake flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 5 large eggs, at room temperature 200 g granulated sugar Zest of 1 lemon 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract ¼ teaspoon kosher salt 2 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
Make the piping decoration by beating the butter with powdered sugar in a small bowl until fully combined. I used a hand-held electric mixer. Add the egg whites and beat for a couple of minutes. Add the flour and mix by hand with a spoon, divide in one small portion to dye black, one larger portion to dye red.
Make a diamond pattern with a Sharpie pen on parchment paper, and add heart shapes. Flip the paper so that the writing is at the bottom, and pipe the outline black. Freeze for 10 minutes. Quickly fill the hearts with red paste. Freeze again while you make the cake.
Heat oven to 350°F. Sift the flour and baking powder into a small bowl. Reserve. Place the eggs and sugar in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat until the mixture form ribbons, about 12 minutes. Add the lemon zest, lemon extract and vanilla. Beat until combined. Sift the flour mixture over the beaten eggs, fold gently. When the flour is mostly incorporated, add a little bit of the mixture to the melted butter, whisk well. Pour that into the cake batter, whisk gently to disperse. Pour over the frozen parchment paper placed in a half baking sheet, and smooth the surface.
Bake the cake until it begins to pull away from the sides, 12 to 17 minutes.
Transfer the pan to a cooling rack, cover the cake with a towel and let it cool for 10 minutes. Remove the towel, sift a little powdered sugar over the surface and flip it over parchment paper. Gently peel off the paper with the design, flip the cake again over a clean towel. Starting with a short side of the cake, roll the cake gently, using the towel to support the cake as you go. Let the cake cool all rolled up in the towel, seam side down.
Carefully unroll the completely cool cake, spread the blueberry curd filling, then roll it again. Wrap the cake in plastic and refrigerate for at least 3 hours, overnight is best. When ready to serve, slice a small piece of each of the ends, so that it looks more polished.
Comments: I haven’t made a patterned roll cake in a while, so I really enjoyed this little adventure. I messed up while making the curd (sorry, Caro!), did not cook it enough, so after 10 hours in the fridge it was still too loose. Lesson learned. I made a gelatin mass with 1 tsp gelatin + 5 tsp water, warmed it to dissolve in the microwave. I heated up the curd to about 60 C and added the melted gelatin. Mixed well and allowed it to cool slowly, then placed in the fridge overnight. It was perfect to use next morning. Huge thank you to my friend Gary for the advice to deal with the curd. I added a very small amount of pink gel dye to the cake batter, but that is optional. I did not include in the recipe, as the cake will look perfectly ok without it.
The cake was moist and tender, the blueberry curd absolutely delicious! The combination of orange and blueberry is a real winner, thank you Caro!
And now, time to share a few ideas, you can use any recipe you like, or some that are already in my blog
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CHOCOLATE-COVERED OREOS
I used white Wilton candy melts to cover Lemon-flavored golden Oreos, and once that was set I made the heart decoration with Royal icing. First piped the black outline, let that set a bit and flooded the center with pink.
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COMIC-STYLE HEART COOKIES
Comic-style, so popular these days! I followed a recent tutorial from Amber (join her club here) to make these babies. Some steps shown below.
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POLKA-DOT HEART COOKIES
Super simple design, just flood, air-brush with a stencil and add some Royal icing transfers. A little bead border is of course more than welcome…
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ZENTANGLE HEARTS, TWO WAYS
For a modern look, just flood with any color of your choice, and then use a food safe pen to draw the design…
For a modern but romantic look, just play with flowers…
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BICOLOR HEART COOKIES
For those who do not care for icing, these will be a huge hit. Just mix two recipes, chocolate and plain, cut shapes and mix-and-match the centers. Bake and you are done!
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MINI-BONBONS WITH MARSHMALLOW FILLING
I used candy melts to coat tiny silicone molds with heart shapes (available here). Placed a mini-marshmallow in the center and covered the molds with melted chocolate. Once that set, I un-molded the bonbons and drizzled white chocolate for the decoration, adding a little sprinkle heart on some of them.
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POLKA-DOT HEART SOURDOUGH
For the recipe, check my blog post with a click here.
I hope you’ve found some inspiration in this post for your future bakes, and please enjoy the weekend ahead, particularly if you are a football fan!
No recipe today, quite the opposite. My passion for baking has made me join many groups on Facebook related to cookie decorating, macarons, patisserie in general. One of the most common requests in those groups is “I want to start baking macarons… please give me a foolproof recipe”… or… I want to make decorated sugar cookies, but I want a cookie recipe that won’t spread, and the BEST Royal icing that will be easy to work with. Similar requests for bread baking, or pie crust, or laminated dough… Basically they believe that “the best recipe” is the answer to all issues. Guess what? It is not. Just to give one basic example, you can make macarons using three very different methods for the meringue (French, Swiss, Italian), and they will ALL work, if you add to it the one key ingredient no one lists in any recipe: PRACTICE.
About a year ago, I fell for something I saw advertised. A cookie recipe that was so good that you could only get it by paying for it through the author’s etsy shop. I was so intrigued, that I confess I did pay. I paid almost $20 to get ONE recipe for cookie dough, which is probably the price I pay for most cookbooks I own. It turns out that magical recipe was almost exactly the one I’ve been using for a long time, with minor differences. It taught me a big lesson. It is NOT the recipe. It is your experience, the “feel” you develop for something once you do it over and over and over.
Royal icing is tricky. Consistencies need to absolutely perfect depending on what you want to do with it. I’ve been decorating cookies on a regular basis for at least 3 years and I can tell you that every single recipe out there will work once you get used to it, once you PRACTICE. No recipe will replace practice. Some recipes tend to attract a lot of attention, because all of a sudden a group of seasoned bakers start praising it and then those who are just beginning their baking journey will try it. If that fails, they assume THEY are the failure. Trust me, most recipes can work if you allow yourself to get acquainted with the different steps, and commit to practicing it. Yes, I do sound like a broken record today…
Do I have recipes I consider excellent and tend to go back to all the time? Yes. My Grown-up Spicy Chocolate Cookiedough is one. My default French macaron recipe is another. But even those, it took me MANY attempts at making and optimizing it, until I felt comfortable with them. I now add different flavorings to the chocolate dough, omit the chipotle, take it into different directions with orange or cardamon, but the overall procedure is the same and I am confident about tweaking it because I have made it more than 100 times. If my dough behaves different one day, I can tell, and I can do the adjustments because I got the “feel” for it. No recipe gave it to me, it was just practice. Over, and over.
Sugar cookies are another example. Some recipes omit baking powder and add cornstarch. I am quite fond of that basic approach. After trying many different versions, for my particular goals, a little bit of baking powder is a good thing, but not as much as most recipes call for. Yes, baking powder makes the cookies rise UP, which is not a bad thing. But it also gives them a rounded edge I don’t care for if I am decorating with Royal icing. I rather have a more flat surface all the way to the edge. Omitting baking powder completely is perfect in that sense, but the texture of the cookie suffers. So I use 1/4 tsp of baking powder for a nice compromise (a favorite recipe of mine is this one, but I vary the flavors all the time). It works for me, but it took me months of tweaking, observing the results and testing again. And again. Another whole universe is stamped cookies in which keeping the design is a must . Different molds behave better with some recipes than others. No single recipe will be a winner. But once you commit to finding what works for you, it will all fall in place.
Bottomline is, every time someone begs for the perfect recipe and expects success, I tend to roll my eyes to the ceiling a bit. You want the perfect recipe? Be ready to work for it. You have to make it happen in your kitchen, with your oven, your ingredients and for your personal taste. No one, absolutely no one can do it for you. Baking is one of the most rewarding activities, if you enjoy the path. Including the failures, the mistakes, the less than stellar results. Don’t expect the perfect recipe to be handed to you, instead make it materialize. Work with it, and above all, make your path fun!
Bewitching Kitchen 