The Daring Cook's October 2009 Challenge: Violet Macarons

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Visit Ami S - LAmonkeygirl at http://bakingwithoutfear.blogspot.com/

I have made some lovely little violet macarons complete with dried violets sprinkles for everyone to enjoy. I normally use the Italian Meringue technique, but as this was a challenge, I have used the recipe given by Ami S.

Ingredients:

2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz) confectioners’ (icing) sugar

2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz) almond flour (meal)

2 tablespoons (25 g, .88 oz.) granulated sugar

5 egg whites (approximately 165 grams. 5.8 ounces) (at room temperature)

a few drops each of red and blue food colouring

whole crystalised violets (found in a speciality kitchen shops)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.

2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks. Add a few drops each of red and blue colouring until a pretty violet colour is obtained, making it brighter than the required finished colour as it fades during cooking.

3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.

4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.

5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper) and sprinkle whole crystalised violets on top of half of the shells.

6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.

7. Cool on a rack before filling.

Yield: This recipe is supposed to yield 10 dozen. Ami's note: My yield was much smaller than this. I produced about two dozen filled macaroons. (As was mine)

For the violet ganache:

50g unsalted butter

50g almond meal

100g confectioners (icing) sugar

1 teaspoon violet flavouring
a few drops each of red and blue colouring

Process almond meal and icing together same as for the macarons. Cream the butter and gradually add almond mixture. Add 1 teaspoon violet flavouring and a few drops each of red and blue colouring to make a pretty violet colour.

Finishing off: Pair up similar sized macarons, with one macaron turned face up. Pipe approximately a teaspoon of filling on to the turned up macaron, twist the pair together until filling comes just to the edges of the macarons. Place in a small paper cup cake patty to set.

Storing: Keep the unfilled shells in a container in the fridge and they will be more tender. Macarons can also be frozen. Freezing has a tenderizing effect but at the same time, the shells will be weaker than before being frozen. To defrost, remove the macarons from the freezer and place them in the refrigerator overnight. This minimizes condensation on the shells but also gives them a bit of shininess.

Note: The violet flavouring is from a French company: - Sevarome- Z.A La Guide 1 43200, Yssingeaux Z.I. La Guide, France
Tél : +33 4 71 59 04 78
Fax : +33 4 71 65 54 24
Email: info@sevarome.com
Web: Sevarome.com

Don't forget to visit the other Daring Bakers and for some fabulous tips visit Audax Artifex at http://audaxartifex.blogspot.com/

Bakewell Tart…er…pudding

The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.

Thank you both, Jasmine and Annemarie for this lovely challenge and for the recipe below.

This was great pastry to work with and easy to make. Next time I will make double the quantity and freeze half for a quick dessert...er...pudding in the future. I've used sour cherry jam in this one but not my own this time!!!

Bakewell Tart…er…pudding:

You will need a 23cm (9”) tart pan and a rolling pin.

One quantity sweet shortcrust pastry (recipe follows)

Flour for the bench

250ml (1cup) jam, warmed for spreadability (sieved to remove any seeds)

One quantity frangipane (recipe follows)

One handful blanched, flaked almonds

Assembling the tart

Place the chilled dough disc on a lightly floured surface. If it's overly cold, you will need to let it become acclimatised for about 15 minutes before you roll it out. Flour the rolling pin and roll the pastry to 5mm (1/4”) thickness, by rolling in one direction only (start from the centre and roll away from you), and turning the disc a quarter turn after each roll. When the pastry is to the desired size and thickness, transfer it to the tart pan, press in and trim the excess dough. Patch any holes, fissures or tears with trimmed bits. Chill in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 200C/400F.

Remove shell from freezer, spread as even a layer as you can of jam onto the pastry base. Top with frangipane, spreading to cover the entire surface of the tart. Smooth the top and pop into the oven for 30 minutes. Five minutes before the tart is done, the top will be poofy and brownish. Remove from oven and strew flaked almonds on top and return to the heat for the last five minutes of baking.

The finished tart will have a golden crust and the frangipane will be tanned, poofy and a bit spongy-looking. Remove from the oven and cool on the counter. Serve warm, with crème fraîche, whipped cream or custard sauce if you wish.

When you slice into the tart, the almond paste will be firm, but slightly squidgy and the crust should be crisp but not tough.

Sweet shortcrust pastry

225g (8oz) all purpose flour

30g (1oz) sugar

2.5ml (½ tsp) salt

110g (4oz) unsalted butter, cold (frozen is better)

2 (2) egg yolks

2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract (optional)

15-30ml (1-2 Tbsp) cold water

Sift together flour, sugar and salt. Grate butter into the flour mixture, using the large hole-side of a box grater.

Using your finger tips only, and working very quickly, rub the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Set aside.

Lightly beat the egg yolks with the almond extract (if using) and quickly mix into the flour mixture.

Keep mixing while dribbling in the water, only adding enough to form a cohesive and slightly sticky dough.

Form the dough into a disc, wrap in cling and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes

Frangipane

125g (4.5oz) unsalted butter, softened

125g (4.5oz) icing sugar

3 (3) eggs

2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract

125g (4.5oz) ground almonds

30g (1oz) all purpose flour

Cream butter and sugar together for about a minute or until the mixture is primrose in colour and very fluffy. Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter may appear to curdle. In the words of Douglas Adams: Don’t panic. Really. It’ll be fine. After all three are in, pour in the almond extract and mix for about another 30 seconds and scrape down the sides again. With the beaters on, spoon in the ground nuts and the flour. Mix well. The mixture will be soft, keep its slightly curdled look (mostly from the almonds) and retain its pallid yellow colour.

Banana-Banana Bread Using the KitchenAid Scrape-a-Bowl

I received my Scrape-a-Bowl blade on Wednesday evening (3 days ago) and so far I have only made banana-banana cake and soft gingerbread dough (another post). I didn't think it creamed the butter and sugar as well as I would have liked for the gingerbread. It may have been that the recipe called for granular sugar. I normally use castor sugar for my recipes as the smaller particles aerated the mixture much better. I didn't have any problems with the banana bread.

Banana-Banana Bread adapted from Shelley Albeluhn's recipe on Allrecipes.com.

I'm sure it's called banana-banana because it has loads of wonderful banana flavour. This is the best banana bread recipe you can find. It is moist and delicious and soooo... adaptable. I throw in whatever I have on hand in the pantry that will go with it. You can use more or less bananas. I have used between 5 and 7 at different times and the result is still perfect every time. If you don't have enough banana, use apple sauce to make up the volume. You can add any type of nuts, spices and fruit - fresh or dry. This time I have added walnuts, unsalted cashews, almonds, dried cherries and a multitude of different spices.

Basic Ingredients:

250g (2 cups) all-purpose flour

5g (1 teaspoon) baking soda

2g (1/4 teaspoon) salt

115g (1/2 cup) butter

110g (3/4 cup) brown sugar

2 eggs, beaten well

525g (6-7 - around 2 1/3 cups) mashed overripe bananas

(definitely overripe for the real banana taste)

Optional:

100g walnuts

100g unsalted cashews

100g raw almonds

100g dried cherries (or whatever you have in the pantry)

100g dark chocolate chips (or milk or white chocolate chips)

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon mixed spice

1 teaspoon ground allspice (or whatever spices your taste dictates)

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 11 x 4 inch loaf pan (I used my large bread tin). If you don't add the optional ingredients, use a 9 x 5 pan.

Combine the flour, baking soda, salt, spices, cherries and nuts in a large bowl. In another bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar (use the Scrape-a-Blade if you have one). Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into the flour mixture. As this is a quick bread, stir just enough to moisten so it doesn't toughen. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan.

Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a wooden skewer inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let the banana bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

Alternatively, you can make muffins. The basic recipe makes 12 muffins. With the optional ingredients, I usually make around 18 muffins with the amounts above. These only have to cook for 20 - 25 minutes.

See the reviews and video of the KitchenAid Scrape-a-Bowl on the Williams-Sonoma Website. No more stoppping to scrape down the sides. It mixes liquid and soft batters fabulously and works in half the time. Overall, a very efficient mixer blade and well worth the price ($49AU).

Positives:

It conforms to the shape of the mixer bowl

It scrapes the entire sides and bottom of the bowl with every revolution

It has a curved shape that folds the ingredients towards the middle

It has a taller blade that reaches ingredients higher in the bowl for more uniform mixing

It has parallel crossbars that mixes faster

It mixes in half the time of the original blade

Negatives:

You can't use it for heavy doughs such as cookies or it may break.

Some reviews state that it doesn't work as well for frostings, whip cream, and creaming butter and sugar. My advice is to use castor (super fine) sugar for most recipes and use the original blade for cookies.