"Macaronotized" and Sydney

I hate to admit this new obsession I have: The french Macaron. There are days I find myself off somewhere just dreaming up recipes for new flavors of macarons, I believe I have been "macarontized." The feeling is almost hypnotic. I am driving Sydney nuts, my goodness its summer, 92 degrees in the shade and I want to turn the oven on to bake macarons! We compromised, I would work early in the morning before the heat becomes too bad!

I have been working on Citron Souffle Macaron Shell with a special Swiss Meringue Buttercream, White Chocolat Blanc Shell Macaron, Cerise-Vanille shell with Creme Fraishe and Pomme Shell.

I love the flavoring of the shells, there seems to be an unbelievable amount of ways to flavor them. Like I said I have been "macaronotized."

As much as I love creating macarons, I must admit I love preparing them with Sydney, my other obsession. It will be a hard transition when she leaves for college (far from home). Normally a parent would throw themselves into what they love, but my passion is baking/cooking and I have been sharing my passion with Sydney all her life. At least her college classmates will be loving her: the dorms have kitchens for the students to use.  I have been told by a pretty reliable source she will be in a dorm with a kitchen.

What college student, far from, home would not want one of these delightful snacks?  

So even if I am making her nuts by fall she will have wonderful memories of us baking together all summer long, and maybe a few odd memories of having to wake up early in the morning to take pictures of food before the sun is too bright.

Sorry to go so far off topic, back to the macaron. I am happy to report the Cerise Vanille Macaron is Delicious and Sydney had a wonderful thought of adding cherry pieces to the top. However I must admit is was a very long day.

We had to first process the almonds and we have found by trial and error to use whole almonds and then pulverize the almonds into a VERY fine powder, add the icing sugar and pulse to combine.

Voila Tant Pour Tant

Looking at the wonderful manicured nails, yes Sydney is holding the bowl. Meringue time and sugar syrup. As I have admitted in prior blogs Sydney is in charge of the sugar syrup and I whip up the egg whites.

This next step starts for us with a plump fragrant beautiful vanilla bean, of which we use the entire bean skin and seeds.

 

The sugar syrup and a sturdy helpful thermometer 

The Egg Whites being weighed

Whip meringue ready to join the Tant Pour Tant

Sydney clears the decks or in this case the counter top and places all the double stacked baking sheets lined with a silicone mats, as I begin to pipe Macaron Cerise Vanillel, Macaron Citron Vert, and the Chocolate Macarons

Cerise Vanille

 

 Macaron Citron Vert

Chocolate Macarons

Now the wait begins with the oven preheating, though it is 5:30 p.m. the temperature outside is still in the high 88 F. My thought, start the sponge for a brioche and Sydney thought "can we take an hour sit on the deck and drink freshly squeezed lemonade. Sydney wins this time: I love fresh tart lemonade, besides I had promised we would work only in the early morning and its now early evening! (I guess I owe her time to rest!)

The sweet summer air, the wonderful company causes the hour to just blink by and it is time to join our patiently waiting macarons and the heated oven.

Cooling

Cooking

Chocolate Cooking

Chocolate Cooling

The oven has finally finished it's job, just as the evening begins to cool down. Now the excitement starts as we put the fillings together and choose colorants to match. The  Chocolate Triple Macarons are easy they will be married with Chocolate Ganache and liqueur. We really had to put our heads together to design a perfect filling for Macaron Cerise Vanillel, to deliver an aroma and flavor from the first bite to the last.

The Ganache still waiting

Viola the filling in the macaron

The finished project

Same Macaron just a different view

This flavor has some wonderful memories, I realize that might sound odd, but from the moment I thought of cherry Sydney and I have spent long hours just to create the recipe for the Macaron Cerise -Vanille. Once we had a good recipe we then needed to produce a few batches to insure a pleasurable, unique and unforgettable macaron experience. So far all of the fead back has stupendous!

A few of the other macarons we designed

These past few days have been filled with fun and respect.  In fact we both started to experiment with more recipes and macarons. Just for fun we mixed and matched a Citron Vert Shell with a Cerise-Vanille Shell piping the filling designed for Cerise-Vanille

WOW another summer holiday gone by, and due to an uninvited rain storm the fireworks were canceled;  however we still had plenty of color exploding inside due an array of macarons.

Lemon Souffle