Tuesday, June 26, 2012

White Chocolate and Blueberry Macarons


There is no need to pay upwards of $3 each for these delicious treats, when you can make them for a fraction of the price. They sky is the limit when thinking of new flavours to create!
Macaron Filling
Beerenberg Blue Berry Jam
250g of White cooking chocolate
125g of thickened cream
Put chocolate and cream in a microwave safe bowl, heat in microwave for 30 seconds at a time mixing in between until all combined.
Make the ganache up to a day in advance, take the ganache out of the fridge when you take the shells out of the oven, mix it up with a flat blade so it is soft enough to pipe.

Ingredients – Makes about 25 filled Macarons
150g almond meal
150g pure icing sugar
55g egg whites (fresh)
Put dry ingredients into a food processor until mixed and fine, put into a large bowl and combine with the egg whites. Cover with cling wrap and set aside

 
Ingredients for Italian Meringue
150g caster sugar
37g water
55g egg whites (age egg whites for 24 hours in a bowl on the bench)
Food colouring (to get vibrant colours you will need up to a teaspoon of food colouring, don’t add more food colouring once the sugar has been combined with the egg whites)

Pour your aged egg whites into a bench mixer bowl and use the whisk attachment.  Whisk the eggs until firm peaks form.  
Bring the caster sugar, water and food colouring to the boil in a small saucepan.  Bring sugar syrup reaches up to 115°C ( if you do not have a thermometer, you can test the sugar mixture by dipping a spoon into the sugar and putting it into water, if the sugar forms a firm ball it is ready and remove from the heat immediately. It should take about 4 mins but check every 30 seconds from 2 mins)

When the sugar syrup is ready, turn the mixer back on to a slow speed, slowly pour the syrup into the beaten egg whites in a thin stream. Once the sugar is added put the mixer on a medium – high speed. Continue whisking until the mixture reaches room temperature, will take about 10mins.

Using a spatula, fold one-third of the meringue into the almond meal and icing sugar mixture and knock out some of the air in the batter. At this stage of the process you can be quite rough when handling.

Gently fold in the rest of the meringue until just combined. Be careful not to over-mix the batter here or it will get too runny and your shells may crack in the oven.

Fill a piping bag with the macaron batter and pipe 3.5 - 4cm diameter circles onto the parchment paper, tap the tray on the bench to remove air bubbles and leave to dry for about 15-20 minutes to form a crust and are dry to touch. There are Macaron templates available if you find it difficult to make similar sizes.

Cook the macarons for 15 mins at 135°C (fan forced oven). Cooking times can vary, so check after 12mins, if you can gently lift a macaron off the paper intact they are cooked, it if starts to come apart put them back in and keep cooking.  Once cooked, remove from the baking tray and leave to cool on the parchment paper over a wire rack.

Remove the shells from the parchment paper and put a small amount of Blueberry Jam in the center of 1 shell (about the size of a 5 or 10cent coin in the middle) pipe the white chocolate ganache around the jam then place another shell on top, giving it a bit of a twist to distribute the ganache evenly.

Macarons improve over night in the fridge in a container, allow the macarons to return to room temperature before serving.



Costing
Almond Meal = $4.03
Pure Icing Sugar = 0.53c
Eggs = $1.50
Caster Sugar =  0.32c
Chocolate = $2.33
Cream = 0.63c
Jam = 0.80c
Total cost for Approx 24 filled Macaron is $10.14 or 0.42cents each! Saving $2.58 for each Macaron.
If you are keen on making lots of Macarons you can also save more money by sourcing almond meal and chocolate in bulk.

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