Salted Caramel filling (from Pierre Herme’s recipe)  this recipe is quite good, kinda sweet without overly sweet

120 Sugar

200g Whipping Cream

103g Softened Unsalted Butter ie 18g + 85g

(optional) sea salt

Direction for making salted caramel can refer to Tastebook

Macaron shell recipes are from Rohani Jelani:

* I did tried making a hazelnut chocolate ganache, but it was very hard to pipe even when i used a larger nozzle, next time have to use the largest nozzle due to the hazelnut paste i use is with hazelnut bits which stuck to the nozzle

** I have tried using milk chocolate button to make chocolate ganache and the macaron is just too sweet. Macaron shells is best paired to dark chocolate to balanced out the sweetness of the shell

A very good website with many tips for macaron making: BraveTart & Zumbo Baking

My previous macaron baking adventure.

Shell (Original):

120g sieved almonds

200g icing sugar

100 egg white

40 caster sugar

Shell (Chocolate):

110g sieved almonds

200g icing sugar

4 Tbsp cocoa powder

100 egg white

40 caster sugar

Shell (Coffee):

120g sieved almonds

200g icing sugar

1 rounded teaspoon instant coffee

100 egg white

40 caster sugar

Important to note when making macaron:

1) Finished texture can’t be too watery (ie meringue have to be beaten till soft peak and not moving, some website did seem to beat till hard peak which i have yet to try, i just find it is easier to incorporate almond-icing mixture into soft peak)
2) Almond can’t be over mixed during sieving by pressing into sieve else the end mixture will collapse and watery due to oily nut (ie cocoa powder/espresso powder/icing must be presieved before sieving together with almond)

3) The piped macaron have to be placed in air-conditioned room till the shell is COMPLETELY not stick when touched. (If it still feel sticky, leave it in the aircon room as long as it takes to be dry to touch, else rest assure the macaron will crack on top while being baked)

4) Sieve the dry ingredients for 3 or 4 times. (due to me not having a food processor)

5) I find putting the baking pan slightly nearer to the lower heat source works well (just a hunch, i could be wrong)

I made 3 shells: plain, chocolate and coffee, The best is the chocolate macaron shell surprisingly, cos i thought chocolate ones will crack more easily. I think i might have master chocolate macaron as it is the one which has most with feet.

Some additional tips which may or may not be important 😉

1) egg white room temperature

2) Fold in your dry ingredients in at least 4 additions. Do not dump the whole thing into the beaten foam or you might end up with a runny batter (oops, i think i have to follow this, my batter sometimes end up runny and very hard to set even left in air conditioned room for very long)

Variation:

* On one instance, I did doubled macaron recipe but forgetting to double the caster sugar (used 20g instead of 40g), and the macaron shells is so hard to harden and dry. thus almost all have no feet and top crack (except some chocolate ones which ends up having feet, so far chocolate macaron shells is my best bet now), so i guess there the amount of sugar in macaron recipe can’t be reduced.

I find Lauduree, TWG macaron quite good, with good flavor without too sugary sweet, and one thing is there are very shiny on top, and from what i see from other’s website, their macaron batter are quite smooth and soft, mine might just be slightly undermix and grainy fearing the batter will be overmixed and become runny, perhaps i should mix it further to make the end product have a ‘shiny’ top, instead of a slightly ‘grainy’ top.

Picture Time…

recipe from Rohani Jelani

Pierre Herme caramel recipe, i reduced the amount the whole recipe to corresponds to 200ml of whipped cream i bought

egg white broken and left to ‘aged’ in a container in fridge for 3 days to 1 week

sieve the dry ingredients together. Many recipe specify to use a food processor. Having no food processor, i just triple or sieve it for four times.

prepare the nozzle to pipe mac shells

egg white

mix egg white and dry sieved ingredients

spoon into piping bag with bottom sealed, the batter looks running, urgh

looks kinda runny to me

runny batter cause the feet to slightly spread out

still look decent enough here

cool

chocolate macaron

nice macs

only 1 or 2 crack, yay!

nice feet and shiny top

coffee macs, slide it onto baking sheet

rap the sheet a few times to remove air

use a small toothpick or chopstick to smooth the top of visible air bubbles

smoothed

yuck, look like cookie, not pretty at all, there was a ‘mishap’ while making this batch of macaron, the oven i used was suddenly shut itself off due to fuse burnt, and i have to switched to a smaller oven and switching to a smaller baking sheet, and resulting in this super ugly macs

waiting to be filled

caramel prepared earlier and to be left in the fridge

cooled, just took out from fridge

whip it up to dreamy sweet caramel

pipe

Tadaa

a very lengthy macaron post ahead

Macaron has been all the rage in Kuala Lumpur this year. They are sold per piece at the price as low as RM2-RM2.50(Whisk, Empire Gallery Subang & Babycakes Sweet Shoppe, Jalan Tun Razak) to as high as RM5 per piece in Boudoir(pedicure/manicure place in Bangsar Village). I have never been fan of sweet stuff, especially sugary sweet dessert. But guess the macaron movement have affected me to certain extent, and this could also be my retirement plan… hahaha… imagine selling a little piece for RM2-RM5… 😀 Anyway, the technicality of making macaron is frustrating, it behaves like a cranky female which wants everything according to her mood, if not it will crack up, literaly.

Below the recount of 4 macaron baking sessions which i had, the first 3 are not successful, the 4th finally has some nice feet although it doesn’t look very neat. And that is after reading all macaron chronicles post in Kitchen Musings, she does have a lot of tips for macaron baking.

Above is egg white aged minimum 3, maximum 5 days in the fridge. Aging egg white mean cracking the egg white into a container, cover it, and let it sit in the fridge. Doing this will make some water evaporate from the egg white, making it less liquidy but with the same amount of protein structure needed for macaron

1st macaron making:

newbie taking macaron for a spin, using walnut powder… macaron are most often use ground almond, bought it in a chinese sundry shop, it is a walnut drink thingy, ingredients are walnut powder + soy powder + oat powder

ingredients: aged egg white(3 to 5 days), 2 packs of walnut powder, caster sugar and icing sugar, that’s it, the ingredients are simple, just 4 ingredients for a basic macaron shell.

2 packs of walnut powder mixed with icing sugar, shake it in a plastic bag… for this first macaron baking, i didn’t have a electronic kitchen scale, everything is measured roughly which explain why it fails terribly.

sieve it(walnut powder + icing sugar mixture)

beat egg white and icing sugar

beat till stiff peak but still glossy(that’s what they say, don’t know how to differentiate glossy and dry egg white)

mix the dry ingredients(walnut powder + icing sugar) into meringue(egg white + sugar beaten up)

all combined

piped shells

beat/rap the piped shells on the counter to remove surface air bubbles

dried macaron shells(after leaving them in an air conditioned room for at least 20 minutes, maximum an hour for a dry skin to form, this will prevent the top from cracking when baked in oven

ooh, so pretty… not, they are supposed to look smooth on top and with chiseled feet at the bottom, Failed!

2nd macaron making:

so watery, can hardly pipe them at all, it was dripping all over, i measured ingredients using electronic scale. Later found out that ground almond must be put into food processor for a blitz for it to be finer, else the whole mixture will be too runny caused by not enough dry mixture to absorb the meringue

surprisingly it has feet, but why is it spread out? so ugly… According to Kitchen musing, this could be due to oily nuts, and i remember using a sift which is too fine, and i used spoon to press the ground almond+icing sugar through the sift, that must have caused the ground almond to be greasy

looks fine from this angle, but its feet spread out and fall flat after i took it out of oven

3rd macaron making:

feet spread out as well, still didn’t know about the greasy nut factor, still pressing the ground almond from the fine sift. Nathalie from Nathalie from Nathalie Gourmet Studio did mention we have to buy sift which holes are not too small

feet still spread out

4th macaron making:

I am more prepared this time, wanted to buy the placemat with rounds from Ikea, but i think they are not carrying them anymore, so got the above small squares and large circles placemat from tesco, depending on what size of macaron you want to make. Remember to use baking paper not greaseproof paper, both you can get from tesco, Rohani Jelani told us it will stick to greaseproof paper, must use baking paper, both looks similar but their texture is slightly different

lay over a baking paper over the placemat, pipe the shells accordingly

bake in on a cookie sheet, 150C, about 12 minutes

wooo, nice feet after 3 minutes, the feet should appear in the first 3 or 4 minutes into the oven, else it probably a fail

nice feet

first batch, i slightly underbake it which makes it hard to be removed from the baking paper

second batch, much better, can remove from baking paper with ease

put into a container and into fridge, you can fill in the chocolate etc filling on the next day

go the easy way by piping in ferrero nutella 😛

done, that conclude my macaron experiments. Conclusion, it is still very sweet, i find most probably the meringue will be sweet as the recipe you find online is of roughly the same amount of sugar, the only way to make them taste less sweet is probably to make a filling which is less sweet to fool the tastebuds :p

Some tips i found from Kitchen Musings:

Macaron Class taught by french chef Nathalie who heads Nathalie Gourmet Studio in Solaris Dutamas(near Solaris Dutamas Pappa Rich) We were taught to make 3 kinds of macarons: Chocolate Macaron with chocolate ganache, macarons with raspberry fillings and those with salted caramel fillings. Love the selection, had been wanting to know how salted caramel taste like.

Macaron base has 4 main ingredients: ground almond, icing sugar, egg white and caster sugar. Almond meal + icing sugar which has been broken up in a blender and sieved again to make sure it is airy and lump free.

We start off making a paste using ground almond+icing sugar+cocoa powder+egg white + valrhona chocolate! valrhona is like the Creme de la Mer in the choco-world, with 70% cocoa butter, cost RM100 plus per kg), unlike previous macaron baking with rohani jelani, Nathalie uses a Italian method of making macaron, it is slightly more complicated as it uses a sugar thermometer in certain stage of mixing to ensure the mixture is in certain temperature or range of temperature…

Nathalie showing up how to pipe macaron

pipped chocolate macaron shells, ikea placemat come in handy

piped macaron shells

meringue for salted caramel macaron. Piping caramel coloured macaron shells

Yeah~ we were given some lovely dessert: some profiterole/cream puff lookalike, but with hard sugar glazing; and chocolate mousse with chestnut puree

making chocolate ganache using valrhona chocolate buttons and whipped cream, nathalie shared with us that she uses President brand whipped cream as some other whipped cream contains stabilizers. melting the chocolate button with warmed whipped cream. We also made raspberry jam and salted caramel, this is interesting, didn’t know that you can actually heat sugar, just sugar, no water in a pan, and it will melt and turn into caramel color, bubbling violently.

filling in the chocolate ganache

pretty chocolate macarons

pipping in raspeberry jam

pretty as well

assembling caramel macarons

salted caramel macarons

une, duex, trois flavors

Nathalie Arbefeuille

packing up, each of us got 12 to bring home.

I love Nathalie’s pick of macaron flavor for the class, they are unique(salted caramel ones, with sea salt added)… She have tested that if she further reduced sugar amount by 10g for the macaron shells, the macaron shells won’t hold its shape well, and the texture will be different. There is good balance of sweetness in the macarons, all the filling are not sweet, to balance up with the sweet macaron shells. However, i will probably use French method of making macaron shells which is easier (don’t have to buy sugar thermometer), but will use Nathalie’s recipes for the fillings(salted caramel and chocolate are the ones i’ll probably try to make)

Nathalie Gourmet Studio is an interesting restaurant, only open from 9am – 6pm, closed on Sundays and their menu changes every month!

Post by other blogger:

CUMI & CIKI

thenomadGourmand

masak-masak

Have You Cake  and Eat It Too

My previous macaron baking with Rohani Jelani

Website: Nathalie Gourmet Studio

Address: Nathalie Gourmet Studio

Nathalie’s Gourmet Studio

A-4-1-5 Dutamas Solaris,

Jalan Dutamas, 50490 Kuala Lumpur.

Telephone: 03-6207 9572

Went for Rohani Jelani’s class using a gift voucher given by friend, macaron have always fascinates me and it is THE dessert that i wish i could make and it is also the one recipe which i will not want to venture in on my own, it just looks so impeccably fine and delicate. Heard of the famous macaron from France’s Pierre Herme’s store and upscaled bakery store in Paris called Lauduree, finally putting my hands on macaron making. Before this day, i only had macaron once, i think bought from Delicious in 1 Utama, and have never thought of making them because it just seems to far out of my league. With the experienced and cool chef like Rohani, i managed to make one batch successfully, smooth top, and with “foot”

Above is kitchen in Bayan Indah

dining hall next to kitchen

another view of dining hall

left: pathway

right: fish pond

Rohani let us eat macaron before we even made them, these above she made previous day. They are coffee and green tea(foreground); plain and orange(background)

ingredients needed for making macaron are all weight exactly and layed out for us.

Left: fold in the almond+icing sugar into beaten egg white.

Right: put into piping bag

I made pistachio flavor macaron with ginger buttercream

Left: almond meal + grounded pistachio mixed with beaten egg white

Right: into piping bag

My tray of piped pistachio macaron

coffee macaron made by others

Left: boiling sugar syrup

Right: sugar syrup boiling hard

Left: egg yolk for making buttercream

Right: pour boiling sugar syrup in a slow and steady stream

Finished basic butter cream, there is loads of butter going into this, it doesn’t taste like butter however, just taste deliciously creamy and nice, I didn’t even know i had down 4 macarons with loads of butter in it during tasting time… hahaha, they are just delicious, maybe a little too sweet, however this is how macaron suppose to be: sweet and very colorful, the sweetness can’t be help as it need sugar to hold its structure… making macaron is like science, everything must be exact and precise.

Left: My tray all baked within 14 minutes

Right: all easy lifted up from baking sheet, they don’t stick 🙂

Closed up, the have nice foot, perhaps next time should have thicker ones and have higher “feet”… hehe…

Basic butter cream, mix the minced ginger into it

Finished product: ginger buttercream filled pistachio macaron, so pretty!

Some other people making coffee macaron with luscious vanilla buttercream, with speckles of real vanilla beans

Cute as a button rose water flavor macaron filled with lychee buttercream and chocolate ones filled with orange buttercream

Left: my take home pack

Right: yummy nyonya styled fish with nasi dagang provided for us 🙂

Macaron is not an easy thing to make, it is more than meet the eye recipe, and weighing each ingredients accurately, most importantly the techniques which is best learnt thru hands on experience.

Some references on making macaron:

Not Derby Pie

David Lebovitz

La Tartine Gourmande

Veronica’s Test Kitchen experiment on macaron and caramel fleur de sel macaron at Kitchen Musings

Post by other blogger:

what’s up with J?

Babe in the City – KL

KLue magazine

Izreen’s Incidental Issues

Address: Lot3343, Kg Palimbayan Indah, Sungai Penchala (near TTDI/Damansara Perdana etc)

Website: Rohani Jelani