Black Sesame Macarons

 Black Sesame Macarons

After what seems like my 100th attempt, I finally managed to bake a decent batch of macarons. Ever since my successful baking experience of the Green Tea Macarons beginning of this year, I have been trying without much luck. What did I do right last time? Was it the ingredients or the temperature of the room or maybe it was the folding process? I guess I just have to keep trying, a lot harder!

Like most Asians, my mum loves black sesame. She never had black sesame macarons before, however when I mentioned that I want to bake something with sesame in it she was ecstatic. Part of the baking process was to ground the roasted sesame seeds; the aroma immediately filled up the room and my mum couldn't be happier.

Leaving the piped cookies sit for 1/2(half) hour before baking to develop a shell.

Unfortunately not all of the cookies developed that perfect smooth shell with the little feet. Most of the shells were actually cracked with no feet, however they still taste pretty good!

Recipe for the cookies was obtained from here. I did not use the Swiss Meringue Vanilla Buttercream recipe for the filling.

For my Black Sesame Macarons filling, I used the following recipe which was too sweet for my liking:

- 125gr of White Chocolate, chopped finely

- 50gr of thickened cream

- 50gr of sesame paste

- 60gr of unsalted butter, room temperature

Method

1. Whisk cream and sesame paste together in a bowl.

2. Add the white chocolate into the cream mixture.

3. Melt the butter in a pot and add into the white chocolate/cream mixture, whisk until smooth.

4. Cool it down at room temperature.

Note: you can make the filling overnight and refrigerate to keep it fresh. Leave at room temperature before putting it onto the cookies.

What flavour should I try next?

La Renaissance Journey Continues

For the past few weeks I have been planning for my Europe trip next year, deciding on which countries and cities to visit. Choosing the countries/cities is probably one of the hardest task of my planning process as there are so many beautiful places all around Europe. Paris is definitely on my travel list! How can one resist the temptation of French butter, wine, baguette, cakes and macarons?

Unable to contain my excitement further, I visited the local French pâtisserie La Renaissance. I went during office lunch break and there was a long queue. While I queued impatiently, I kept hoping and wishing that they still have a good selection of cakes and macarons. To my surprise and excitement, there were quite a number of cakes for me to choose from.

I happily chose the Goya and Fleur De Lys, both have the same round shape and shiny, smooth surface.

Goya $8

The Goya was filled with light creamy mixed berry and passionfruit mousse. Topped with a slice of passionfruit, blueberry, raspberry, and 2 half of macaron shell on each side. The taste was not overly sweet due to the slightly sour and refreshing passionfruit flavour.

Fleur de Lys $8

If you are on the hunt for a really sinful, thick and dark chocolate cake then you definitely have to try the Fleur De Lys. Filled with Valrhona "Guanaja" 70% chocolate mousse with a creamy "Guanaja" centre, crunchy praline and chocolate biscuit base.

 Coffee & Honey and Dark Chocolate Macarons $2.50 each

My last treat of the night was the Coffee & Honey and Dark Chocolate macarons, the only available flavours at the store as they have sold out. Both macarons have the same shell consistency; crispy, soft and chewy on the inside. Surprisingly I enjoyed the Coffee & Honey more than the Dark Chocolate due to its intense coffee flavour. The Dark Chocolate macaron was still too sweet for my liking.

 

Celebrating CNY & Valentine's Day with Adriano Zumbo's macarons

This year's Chinese New Year falls on the same day as Valentine's day. One of the tradition in celebrating CNY is to have sweets and cookies. After I did my weekly grocery at Eveleigh Farmers' Market , I head down to Adriano Zumbo Pâtissier at 296 Darling St, Balmain and get a box of macarons to complete our CNY celebration.

It was hard deciding how many macarons and what flavours to get as I wanted to try all of them! I managed to control myself and came out with only ten(10) macarons, and $20 less in my wallet (cost $2 each). 

Unfortunately I have to share my macarons and only managed to have five(5). However, I made sure that I have my hands on the Mexican Dark Chocolate and Chocolate Passionfruit. I love the Chocolate Passionfruit flavour (third from the front row in the image below), it still maintains the sourness of the fruit and was definitely less sweeter than Lindt's Passionfruit delice. I have nothing against Lindt's delice (a fan of its 70% Excellence delice), I just prefer my macarons to be on the less sweet side.

Heart shaped macarons for the special V day!

Some of the other flavours that I bought were: Normal Dark Chocolate, Caramel & Salted Chocolate, Vanilla, Rasberry, Coffee, Lychee & Pandan, and Strawberry.

I quite like the peculiar taste of the Caramel & Salted Chocolate macaron. The chewiness of the caramel blends really well with the saltiness of the chocolate.

Adriano Zumbo Café Chocolat will be one of my next destination wish list. My aim is to recruit enough ladies/daring men to devour as many cakes as we can stomach!

Care to join me?

What's the difference? Macaron vs. Macaroon

Ok, let me get this straight! I love macarons and not macaroons, yes just with the one(1) 'o'.

So, what is the difference?

For a start, macaron is a meringue based. Made from a mixture of egg whites (or you can alternate this with egg white powder), almond flour, granulated sugar (caster sugar will do the trick) and icing sugar.
The perfect macaron has a smooth, domed top and within 5(five) minutes in the oven it should have the little feet popping out at the bottom. Any longer and you still do not see those little feet, you can forget all about it.
Typically, a macaron is filled with cream ganache, simply made of chocolate, heavy cream and unsalted butter.

70% Excellence Delice (Macaron) from Lindt 

Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of macaroon to show you all the difference (never bake or buy one before). However, if you google search for macaroons you can find images, recipes and even blogs that are dedicated to them.

Most macaroon recipes call for egg whites, coconut (almond as an alternative) and caster sugar. Similar ingredients used in baking macarons, however the method/preparation is entirely different. The texture of a macaroon is more like a soft cookie, light and fluffy. 

Hopefully this mini entry clarifies your confusion =)

Macarons - Love & Hate

I have a love and hate relationship with macarons - had my first taste of macarons from Lindt a couple of years ago. They were just too sweet for my liking! Then came along the 70% Excellence Delice from Lindt, which I have come to love ever since.

Just look at how perfect they are!

You can get them individually ($2.20 each) or a pre-selected flavor box of six(6) & twelve(12). 

I made a trip to Japan in December 2009, with a mission to try the famous Pierre Hermé's macarons.

Pierre Hermé at Isetan Shinjuku, Tokyo

Bought the Christmas/New Year special edition which consist of three(3) different types of savoury macarons, of two(2) I know for sure they were truffle and foie gras. Not knowing what the other one was due to language barrier (the description was in Japanese & French), I still thoroughly enjoyed all of them.

This is where the 'hate' of my macarons story starts. With my newfound obsession of macarons, I decided to try my hands in making them. I successfully bake my first ever green tea macarons!

Before putting the batch in the oven

In the oven, perfect with the 'feet'

Fresh out of the oven, with green tea white chocolate filling

                    
Thinking that it was so easy to make, I tried making dark chocolate macarons and blueberry macarons (one after the other) without success. I was so devastated, kept searching & reading blogs after blogs and realized that it is not easy after all. I am taking a break now and hopefully I will have enough courage for another attempt soon.

In the meantime I will prepare myself for an adventure weekend with Andriano Zumbo's macarons .

Keep tune!