This weather is weird. Here is what the weather was today from where I am:
- Bright, blue sky, with frost on the ground
- Overcast and warmish
- Rain
- Thunder and hail
- Sunny and warm enough to make the ground steam
- Overcast with grey clouds
- Sunny, but wet
- Frost warning on the car when driving
- Sleet and rain
I mean I'm all for having a varying forecast, but this is a tad overkill. I don't like driving in the rain, so you can imagine my disgust at the sight of the sleet. I then pulled over when driving as it was so slushy and irritating to drive in... happily the weather, being so changeable, didn't last long so I wasn't waiting long. I then drove home and what do you know, the sun was out. It's currently raining.
Last week I was blogging a whole lot about a lot of different recipes that I was testing out. This week however I've been flat out with orders. I have delivered them all and finished up all the paperwork. What a great week it has been!
So these are the orders I've had this week:
- 1 Peanut butter and chocolate cake with peanut butter buttercream and a chocolate ganache covering
- 1 Marble cake with chocolate ganache icing
- 40 Salted caramel macaron
I loved all of these orders as they were all so different and unique in their own wee way. They all celebrated their individual main ingredients. Peanut butter, Chocolate and Caramel! All great flavours.
I love chocolate ganache! It is so very creamy, silky and chocolatey. So good in every way. I love the fact that it is so versatile too. You want a drink, no problemo- this can be made and used in a hot chocolate. You want to eat something lusciously divine- this can be made into an icing, thick or thin. It makes a really glossy icing and can lift the flavour of any cake or icing. It has the most beautiful shine off of it too! All glossy and silky.
I love caramel. All sweet and slightly tangy if the salted version. It is smooth, comforting and hugs you tongue. Have you ever has a tongue hug? If not, you need one! How do you all pronounce tongue? I pronounce it phonetically (in my head and when spelling it). Let me spell it the way I say it: Tun-goo. Just like meringue, I pronounce it Mer-ing-goo. You've gotta find ways in which to spell things or you'll be the fool who can't spell... or at least the fool who has no fun with spelling.
I never used to like peanut butter, but see when you add it to apple or chocolate, ooh it's good... and apparently very good for you, well with the apple at least. Protein and all that. High five for healthy, responsible life choices! Although maybe this can't be counted, as I looked at the ingredients in peanut butter- flip is there a lot of oil in it. That is probably why it was such a pain to buttercream my cake? All the oil in the butter made it not want to stick to anything, well not anything, just the cake.
What I did was make the buttercream, cover it with cling film and then chill it for half an hour or until needed. Then when I was icing, I had a cup of boiling water that i'd leave my palette knife in after each use. These two techniques, helped stop the whole 'I'm buttercream and I don't want to stick to your cake cause i'm finicky!' issue. Yes I know finicky is normally used in regards to a person being fussy or particular about their needs and requirements, but this felt appropriate as this buttercream sure acted finicky. It was all fussy about how it wanted to be iced.
Don't worry, I won't bore you all with the method on how to make the peanut butter cake or the marble cake as I've already posted about them earlier in the week, but I will go through how to make the macaron. Yes, I know, I've done a lot of posts about macaron and how to make them, but these aren't just any macaron, they are salted caramel macaron! :D
Ingredients: (Makes 40 Macaron with buttercream filling)
Macaron:
- 250g Icing Sugar
- 250g Ground Almonds
- 6 Egg whites- this should be enough for the 180g you need
- 220g Caster Sugar
Buttercream:
- 200g Unsalted Butter
- 450g Icing Sugar
- 2 x 260g Salted Caramel Sauce or make your own
- You'll need caster sugar, butter, a little water, salt and double cream.
Method:
- Get yourself 6 trays and line them all with a little piece of baking parchment
- Weigh out all the ingredients for the macaron as there isn't really a great stopping place with these. Leave them aside until they are needed.
- Using a sifter, sift the icing sugar and ground almonds together. This will both, lighten and de-lump them (as the almonds, even though they are ground, sometimes have these bigger, almond bits within them. Macaron won't like these. We must dispose of these :) ) and meld them both together to form this one mix. It should look this pale, almond (funnily enough) colour.
- Drop the caster sugar and a little dribble of water into a non-stick pot and allow this to melt, become syrup like and bubble until it reaches 113 C. Or when it is bubbling a lot, is steaming and looks all glossy and sticky. Ooey and gooey basically.
- Chuck all of the whites of the egg into a clean bowl that has no oily residue or anything gross like that. Give this a whisk until the eggs reach soft peaks. This is taking the egg whites to their full frothy potential before anything else is added.
- With the whisk on slow, and when the sugar is ready, pour the sugar syrup into the whites in a steady stream. Once it is all added, turn the mixer up to high and whisk until the meringue is thick, glossy and a really bright white.
- Once it is ready, dump in all the almond/ icing sugar mix and beat with a spatula until, all the videos are saying, looks like lava. Now personally, I've never mixed lava and don't intend to as I like my hands. I've kinda got used to the whole, arms and hands thing and would like to keep them. Lava would ruin this and my macaron.
- Mix until it is thick enough to still hold its shape when piped. Mix until all the lumps have gone away and it is smooth. Mix enough until it just falls off your spatula in a thick, slow, stream. This is when it is done.
- Plop this into the piping bag you have sitting ready for the mix and pipe out little circles of the meringue/macaron mix until all the mix is used up. This should make around 40 macaron, which is 80 halves, or piped circles.
- Leave these to form a skin. A lovely skin that will protect these lovely macaron shells from cracking and sweating in the wrong place. I know, maybe 'sweating' wasn't the most appealing or appropriate word when it comes to food? What I mean is when something is baking, the moisture in the mixture needs to come out somewhere. In bread this is on the top, where it has been scored. In macaron, it is the foot. As it has formed a protective layer- the skin on the top, it can't escape there, and so we have out feet. The sweat or moisture comes out of the bottom.
- Pre-heat the oven to 160 C in a fan oven and allow this to heat up. This is good as it allows time for the oven to preheat, but not get too hot, as it would if you were to put the oven on at the start, but it also gives time for the macaron to prove.
- Once the macaron are ready, bake a tray at a time. Macaron like their space. They're selfish little baked goods. They don't want to share their shelf and they want all the heat to them self. So, bake a tray at a time.
- Bake these for around 6 minutes or so until the top of them are set and firm, but their bottoms are still a little wobbly. They will firm up and set once cooling, but if you over-bake them until they are completely firm, they'll be all crunchy and horrid.
- Leave these to cool, still on the baking paper, but off the tray while making the buttercream.
- Chuck the lightly melted butter into a mixer bowl and give it a whisk until it is smooth and pale.
- Add in the icing sugar and drape over a tea towel and mix until it forms a smooth buttercream.
- Add in the caramel and let the magic begin! This will turn into the most delicious buttercream you have ever tasted! It is so good, I could eat it by the spoon. It is so indulgent and delicious! Even if you don't want to make the macaron, make the buttercream. It would be great on cakes, buns, in pastries. Seriously, try it. :)
- Using a piping bag, pipe little mounds of buttercream onto half of the macaron shells and then sandwich them together until they form full macaron! These are beautiful and perfect in every way!
I then boxed and labelled these and the other two orders up, refrigerated them and delivered them! So happy and busy which make me even happier!
Now all that is left to do is eat when and if you make these! Enjoy them and I hope you have enjoyed this blog post?
Thanks again and I'll be back soon. I want to test out making tarts- so we'll see what happens.
Exciting!
Thanks
Ciara
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