Day 57 - 26 February 2012 - Sweetness

Hello!

It's Day 57! I can't believe I'm managing to keep up with this daily photo business! Today's post is also my entry into this week's Photo Friday Challenge, where the theme is sweetness.

Today was the day of our morning tea for my mother-in-law's birthday. I made quiche, chocolate slice, macarons and cupcakes. The cupcake recipe you can find on yesterday's post.  I should give you the macaron recipe too, because they were DELICIOUS. It was my first time making them, and I'll be making them again. Looking at this photo, I wish I'd chosen my white tablecloth instead of my Italian lemon one, LOL!

I actually used a couple of different recipes to make the macarons. The first one I looked at didn't tell me how or when to mix the egg white mixture with the almond mixture! Following here is my adaptation of the recipes I looked at:

Macarons
Ingredients
150g icing sugar
75g ground almonds (almond meal)
2 large egg whites (room temperature)
35g caster sugar
food colouring

Method
Preheat oven to 170c/325F and line two baking sheets with non-stick baking paper.
Sift the icing sugar and almond meal together.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Then add caster sugar 1 tablespoon at a time and continue beating until the eggwhite mixture is stiff and glossy.
Mix colouring and almond meal and icing sugar into the egg mixture. Mix it in well (you aren't gently folding here, you are making sure it is all mixed together). The mixture should be thick but still wet.
Place the mixture into a piping bag with a plain nozzle and pipe circles onto the baking paper.
Set aside for at least 30 minutes to allow the mixture to settle and for a "skin" to form on top of the macarons. (One recipe I read recommended setting them aside for 5 hours! Which I didn't do.)
Place in oven for 9 - 10 minutes. Remove from oven and leave to cool on the tray.

You can join these with jam, cream, buttercream, or ganache. This time I used the buttercream from my cupcakes (see my cupcake recipe), but next time I think I might make a ganache, the buttercream was a bit sweet for me. The macarons by themselves were divine!

Here's another photo:

Have I made you hungry for sweets?

:-)
Michelle