Daring Bakers Challenge: Macarons!

I've completed my first ever Daring Bakers challenge this month. The challenge was macarons. Indeed, they were quite temperamental ~ when you thought you had them right, they would do something unexpected.

I started out with a first batch of macaronage that looked promisingly like magma, as prescribed by the other blogs and members of the Daring Bakers, which I then patiently divided into two ~ one with extra cocoa and the other plain. The plain one turned out flat like lengua de gato and the chocolate ones looked quite more macaron-like but they didn't develop 'feet' and were very much perforated on top, like wafer.

After closely observing pictures of different successful macarons, I realized that they probably have to air dry before baking, so that the top forms a membrane, which would prevent rising air from perforating the macarons while they’re cooking; and also, as the dry macaron top separates from the rest of its wet body, a ‘foot’ would form.

My second batch saw some measure of success, but I feel I may have caramelized the macarons too much because my oven was too hot. I was quite sure that had I had the courage to incur David’s (the landlord) wrath by noisily grinding more almonds into almond flour for my third batch, I would have learned very much by then and would have achieved the pinnacle of macaron-dom indeed; instead, I shall leave that third testing to you.

To make Burnt Sugar Macarons filled with Chocolate Almond Mazapan, simply follow the recipe below, but crank up the oven temperature by 20C or so and bake the macarons until light brown. For the chocolate almond mazapan, mix 1/2 cup of toasted almond meal with 21/2 T of heavy cream and 1/2 cup of melted semi-sweet chocolate. If you use half a tablespoon of filling for each pair of macaron, you should be able to fill about thirty-five sandwiches.

Basic Macaron Recipe by Claudia Fleming

Preparation time: Not taking into account the amount of time it takes for you to bring your egg whites to room temperature, the whole baking process, including making the batter, piping and baking will probably take you about an hour to an hour and a half. How long it takes to make your filling is dependent on what you choose to make.

Actual baking time: 12 minutes total, plus a few minutes to get your oven from 200°F to 375°F.

Equipment required:
• Electric mixer, preferably a stand mixer with a whisk attachment
• Rubber spatula
• Baking sheets
• Parchment paper or nonstick liners
• Pastry bag (can be disposable)
• Plain half-inch pastry bag tip
• Sifter or sieve
• If you don’t have a pastry bag and/or tips, you can use a Ziploc bag with the corner snipped off
• Oven
• Cooling rack
• Thin-bladed spatula for removing the macaroons from the baking sheets
• Food processor or nut grinder, if grinding your own nuts (ouch!)

Ingredients
Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)
Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)
Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)
Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)

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.
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).
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: 10 dozen

Snow Skin Mooncake

Growing up, this time of the year (but usually, in September) was usually referred to as Mooncake Festival among my siblings. Not quite having the privilege of all four seasons in Manila, Philippines, my family did not stick too close to the traditions of a Mid-Autumn celebration. What we did have was a plenitude of mooncakes sent over from HK every year. I hated those things and remembered enjoying a novelty one particular year --- Snow Skin Mooncakes! The name itself glows with fanciful pleasures. Now, that was truly a long time ago and I hardly remember anything about them except that they were the first mooncakes I have ever enjoyed.

My partner, in the meantime, was feeling like a little orphaned puppy for being isolated from his family in Ecuador, with whom he had spent many, many mid-autumn nights ‘staying home, eating mooncakes and fruits, and staring up the full, round moon’. (sound of howling wolves here) At his whiny behest for a repeat of the snow skin mooncakes I made a month ago (filled with white chocolate ganache) on Mid-Autumn Festival, which is today, (‘but this time with a fruity filling’), I came up with three flavors (originally four, but since I did not have enough containers to make the peach mousse, I settled for three).

The ones I made are filled with summer berry mousse, berry and peach cheesecake, and cookies n’ cream. Mooncake molds (which I’d probably use just this once), being the same price as roughly 1.1 month’s worth of gym fees, were dispensed with. I settled for a little cup that has shallow grooves running down the sides. I am writing all this to justify the plainness of my mooncakes.

I experimented with recipes for the snow skin found in blogs by Yochana and She Bakes, She Cooks. I managed to come up with more than decent ones, but The Partner found the texture too grainy. With a few tweaks, I did come out with a softer, smoother dough. The secret is in the quantity of cooked water and starch solution, I suppose. Anyway, give this a try, you will find that it is not a daunting task at all.

You can fill it with almost anything you like. Jalea de ube with Macapuno or Yema balls (a la egg yolks) would have been nice, too.

You will need lots of bowls / containers and at least overnight for the filling and skin to set properly.

Snow Skin

2 c. Glutinous rice flour
½ c. Rice flour
½ c. Cake flour
1 c. Full cream milk
½ c. Water
3 T. Wheat starch
1 T. Vegetable oil

Transfer the glutinous rice flour, rice flour, and cake flour to a shallow dish and bake in 180C for 30 min. Cool completely. Reserve 1/3 c. of flour.

Mix the milk, water, and wheat starch in a bowl until the starch is completely dissolved. Microwave this on high for 30 SECONDS (not minutes). Stir until smooth. Microwave for another 30 seconds. Add the oil, stir until completely smooth, and set aside to cool completely.

When both mixtures are cool, mix the starch mixture into the flours gradually (not all at once). Knead with your hands until you come up with a pliable dough, that is about 3 steps away from being squishy and wet. You may have excess starch solution that you can store in the fridge for immediate future use. Do not force the flours to take in more moisture than what is right. You should have a very malleable play dough softness; any harder, then you should add more starch mix, any softer then you’d be in trouble if you didn’t have any more flour on hand. Next, wrap the dough in cling film and chill in the fridge overnight.



Filling:

Basic Cheesecake:

250 g. Cream cheese
1 c. Whipping cream
½ c. Sugar
2 t. Lemon juice
2 t. Vanilla
1 T. gelatin dissolved in ¼ c. boiling water (I intentionally added more gelatin powder to harden the filling. You can use less for a proper cheesecake.)

Mix everything but the gelatin solution with a mixer until light and fluffy. While the mixer is running, pour the gelatin solution in a thin stream. Continue beating until all the ingredients have been incorporated properly. Chill the mixture overnight.

Summer Berry Mousse

2 c. Mixed berries (or you can opt for just one kind, washed and drained properly)
½ c. Water
2 t. Gelatin
1 c. Sugar
1 T. Lemon juice
1 c. Cream
1 c. Egg whites

Puree the berries and put into a saucepan with the water, gelatin, sugar, and lemon juice. Cook over low heat until the consistency of syrup has been achieved. (At this point, you may opt to reserve a couple of tablespoons of this mixture for the cheesecake. Just do it. I will explain later.) Cool and chill. When it’s good and cold, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Add the cream to the berries and mix with an electric mixer until it is thick and creamy. Gently, fold the beaten egg whites into the berry-cream mix. Chill overnight. (This is also good as a dessert poured into glasses with sponge fingers in them.)

To Assemble

The reserved tablespoons of berry-gelatin mix without the cream and egg whites, sliced into small pieces
Peaches (balled with a melon baller like faux egg yolks) or cubed (any other fruit may substitute), chill uncovered to dry them out a bit

Oreos, some crushed, some cut into chunks, mixed with 2 T. milk to soften slightly

1. Fruit cheesecake - Roll out the skin and spoon some basic cheesecake into it. Add a couple of peach balls and a small spoonful of the berry-gelatin (sans cream and egg whites) mix. Wrap, mold, and chill overnight.
2. Cookies n’ cream - Mix some of the basic cheesecake mixture with the crushed oreos. Wrap, mold, and chill overnight.
3. Summer berry mousse. Bundle the mousse into the skin. You may add fruits. Wrap, mold, and chill overnight.

Wrapping Technique



Please refer to the montage on right for the proper wrapping and sealing technique. I came up with it after being left feeling disappointed by the thick undersides of the mooncakes with the traditional wrapping (or system-less manner of wrapping) technique. Short of using precisely measured shapes for the skin and pre-molding the filling, I found this gives the thinnest possible skin all throughout the cake.

Roll out about a third of a cup of dough into an oval (not round). Lay the skin on your palm, which you should cup slightly. Arrange the filling so it is distributed fairly evenly on the oval center of the oval skin. Do not mound it into a round shape in the very middle of the skin. Now, fold the lengths of the skin towards the center of the filling. The edges of the skin should touch, so do not overfill. Next, bring the widths of the oval towards the center. Starting on the outer edges, start crimping the skin inward until you have fitted the skin precisely to the filling. Cut away the excess skin (crimped edges).

This is a process of elimination. You start with a large piece of skin to make wrapping easier and work your way to a smaller (precisely fitted) pouch, while pushing and cupping the filling into a round shape as you crimp. Trim the excess skin. Roll the pouch in the reserved flour and pat into your mold. Press it gently, so that it doesn’t burst, but press it firmly enough so that the patterns would show up distinctly on the skin. Turn out. Chill overnight. If you have been careful in achieving a soft pliable dough, then you shouldn’t have too many problems about the skin tearing while you wrap with them; but if you do get little tears and holes, do not worry, just patch them up with little bits of dough.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! Or Happy Mooncake Festival!