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

An attempt to make chocolate puddle cookie from 101 Cookbooks. Actually made it twice. First time, i misread and beat the egg white till stiff peak stage, but actually the recipe specify mixing in the egg white as is.

First Attempt:-

Left: Cocoa powder + sea salt + walnut(toasted, cooled and roughly chopped).

Right: cocoa powder + sea salt + walnut all mixed up.

Left: Egg white beaten till almost stiff peak stage, anyway above is 2 egg white with about 150g of caster sugar. (i halved the recipe, also original recipe specify icing sugar which is not available at home, so caster will do, anyway, caster melted while beating the egg white…)

Right: fold in the egg white with a dash of vanilla

all fold in

oops, the recipe in 101 Cookbooks doesn’t look like this, why are mine so puffed up and big?

Left: second batch of “chocolate meringue”

Right: finished product, after 15 minutes baking time

Left: peel the chocolate meringue off baking sheet, it will be better to peel it off after being cooled for a while, else it easily break into pieces

Right: left on wire rack to be cooled completely.

Second attempt:-
Left: measuring all the ingredients, icing sugar this time on the scale
Right: cocoa powder + walnut + icing + sea salt all mixed up. Then put in 2 egg white into the mixture

Left: look more like what is in 101 Cookbook, don’t overbake these, else it will harden and stick to the baking sheet.
Right: finished product, peel it off the baking paper after cooled for a while, else it will break apart while peeling the baking sheet off.

Chocolate puddle cookie. Actually prefer my variation of beating the egg while to almost stiff peak. Chocolate meringue style is less cloying, more crispy/airy, and guilt-free tasting. Whereas chocolate puddle cookie is more gooey, sticky, looks extremely chocolatey(although i use the same amount of cocoa powder for both attempt) and actually taste sweeter to me, probably due to the more “compact” style, suitable for days when you just want to munch on something sweet, comfort cookie.

Recipe taken from King Arthur Flour website - Baker’s Banter. Making parmesan cheese bun using tapioca flour, suitable for gluten intolerant people. No proofing of dough required, super quick recipe, but i don’t like the taste or texture of the finished product :\

butter and milk, to be boiled

2 eggs and some chopped garlic

mix in boiling butter-milk mixture into tapica flour, then mix in chopped garlic and grated parmesan cheese to form the elastic dough above.

add in egg slowly, it will form a lumpy mixture as above

puffing up in the oven

finished product

above is shown cross section of the cheese bun, i overturn the bun, crispy thin at the bottom, and thick starchy/sticky at the top, don’t like it, find the taste too milky(from milk and butter), and not fan of the starchy/sticky texture and crispy bottom. It didn’t turn out as luscious as the one shown in Baker’s Banter, but that could also be due to me mixing using hand most of the time, didn’t use electric mixer to mix the lumpy mixture till smooth

Another experiment… wanted some cheesy soft bun, but it turns out quite milky(that could also be due to i only put in half the amount of cheese specified ), but still the texture is a turn off…