I always like playing about with macarons, coming up with new flavour combinations. It’s one of the many reasons that they’re so great, they can be so many different flavours.

These were a product of two different inspirations, I had a salted caramel macaron from a little cafe in town called La Boite. Secondly, I found a tutorial on how to make macarons using the Italian meringue method, supposedly more stable and easier to handle than the French meringue method I had been using (demonstrated with these raspberry macarons last year).

Start by whipping the egg white until they’re foamy while also cooking the sugar to soft ball (240F). When the sugar is cooked turn the mixer to low and slowly pour the sugar in. Take care to get it between the whisk and the bowl, if you hit the whisk the droplets will fly off and set around the bowl, possibly falling in and giving you hard lumps of sugar in your macarons (or even fly out and hit you.. painful!). If you drizzle it down the side of the bowl a large proportion of it will set there and not make it into the macarons.

Once the meringue has formed stiff peaks add in some more egg white and then the exceedingly well sifted powdered sugar and almond meal. Add the sugar and meal in stages, folding it in carefully. At this point the mix will still be firm.

Using a process known as macaronner we will beat some of that incorporated air our of the macarons until it forms the consistency we want. The common guide is it should look like “flowing magma” but since I have not visited any flowing magma… at all. In more easily recognised terms, a ribbon on the top should take about 30 seconds to disappear.

Pour into a piping bag and pipe into small circles. They will spread a little, but hopefully not too much. My mix was ever so marginally overmixed, you need to be careful! Being overmixed meant that mine browned a little more than desired (odd how that works) and were a little out of shape. Their feet were also a little sticky.. Too overmixed and you’ll have fun trying to get them off the parchment. This is when I added my sprinkling of sea salt on the top.

Leave to sit, preferably in a nice air conditioned (or cool, dry room) to form a skin, this helps the foot develop and they bake off better.

Bake at 330F, too low or two high will result in that undesirable air pocket in the top of the macaron. Quoting the tutorial “At the 5 minute mark the shells should have lifted and developed ‘feet’. At the 6-7 minute mark they should be starting to colour just slightly. Rotate the baking sheet if the colouring is uneven. The outermost shells often have to be sacrificed in order for the centre ones to be cooked, but the majority should be no more than the palest cream colour. They are probably ready if a shell moves only reluctantly on its foot when you lightly nudge it with a finger.”

After they’ve cooled a little you can start removing them from the parchment.

This batter is a little more forgiving than the French meringue and can be covered and left to one side for a while, for example if you have multiple batches.

Next make the filling, I made a rich, dark caramel with butter and a splash of cream. Sat in the fridge it was pliable but firm.. in the 90F weather it melted pretty quick so I was sure to keep it in a cool box.

Macarons really are best if you leave them at least a day. I’ve heard a French method describe leaving them 3 days in the fridge.. that long may be a bit excessive, but leave them overnight at the very least, it improves the flavour and texture to no end!

Back in December I made peppermint shortbread, it’s a variant on Millionaire’s shortbread. I felt certain I had already waxed lyrical about the wonders of millionaire’s shortbread but when I went to look for it I found that I had not. How could this be, it had to be remedied… a month later.

I can find no history on this shortbread, some people say it’s English, others Scottish, not that big of a difference unless you’re English, or Scottish! I’ve always been told the name is because of how rich and decadent it is, but who really knows!

I won’t go through how to make the shortbread layer again, I’ll just direct you back here. It’s that or copy it word for word *grins*

Then comes the caramel layer. Butter, sugar and wondrousness that is golden syrup is put in a pan and melted, do not boil!

Mix together and add a can of condensed milk. Now you can boil it, for 7 minutes to be precise, while stirring. It should work fine, but if your cooker is a little more powerful it might go too far, in this case the butter will start to separate out from the rest of the mix. DO NOT PANIC! Just take it off the heat and a good whisk up, or a blitz with the immersion blender will set things right. Pour over the shortbread and spread out as level as you can (a few sharp taps of the pan on the counter helps as well). Put it into the fridge and leave for at least an hour to set.

Next comes the chocolate, I found about 8-10oz of chocolate is perfect for a 9×13″ tin, just enough for a thin layer. I went with semisweet since it seems to be the public favourite but bittersweet would work well too. You may need to add a touch of vegetable oil to alter the consistency depending on the brand of chocolate you use, you want it to flow freely, take care though, too much oil and it won’t set properly.

Let the chocolate mostly set and cut into squares. If you let the chocolate completely set you run the risk of it cracking as you cut through. You want it soft enough to cut easily, but set enough that chocolate isn’t going to get everywhere! If you leave it in the fridge and forget about it a hot knife will cut through it just fine. Two inches square seemed to be the perfect size, filling and sweet enough but not too much. They’ll store in the fridge or at room temperature, in an airtight container, put parchment between layers so you can stack them without them sticking to each other.

I definitely prefer these to the peppermint ones however much I love strong minty flavours!

Firstly a Happy New Year to you all, we’re back and ready to start 2011 with a bang! We hope your holiday season was everything you wanted it to be.

–

As we have done the past couple of years we decided to treat our guinea pigs… er.. um.. I mean friends, with a selection of goodies for Christmas. It gives us a chance to try out some new techniques and recipes without the stress of them being for a customer. And we can get reviews on the items from a mix of tastes and preferences, a nice way to see what’s popular.

We started off with two chocolates. First up, a sesame square. Sesame brittle crunched up into chocolate for the base and a chocolate-tahini ganache on top, sprinkled with some toasted sesame seeds. The mix of chocolate and sesame caused some people to stop and think but overall it went down well.

The walnut bonbons were a definite success. A dark chocolate shell, nice and thin and consistent all the way around. The filling was almond, caramel and toasted walnuts, a wonderful mix. These really were the winners this year.

We made two different pate de fruit.. fruit jellies that is. We did a layered one, raspberry, basil and peach. I knew raspberry and basil worked together well although it’s a combination that some people don’t want to even try. I knew raspberry and peach worked so the only gamble here was peach and basil though we were fairly confident. The raspberry layer was thinner than I had wanted but the combination worked really well, nice and refreshing.

Then we tried our hands at some lime slices. These took a bit more effort and still came out a little soft and hard to cut accurately. They had a wonderful tangy flavour that was aided by adding some citric acid to the sugar that they’re coated in. Another winner!

Marshmallows are always a firm favourite so we decided to jazz them up this year with the addition of passionfruit.. It almost worked. They ended up with a hint of flavour, just not as strong as we would have liked. We’ll need to work on them some more.

Finally we ended the goodie box with honeycomb, also known as sponge toffee. Caramel with a hint of honey though the name comes from the honeycomb like structure.

And of course, the furry friends got some of our brew bones. Can’t go leaving them out now can we!

Caramel refers of course to cooked sugar, specifically sugar that has been cooked to the 320°-350°F range so it is an amber to golden colour.

The word caramel was first recorded in 1725, it comes from the Spanish caramelo. The source of caramelo is unknown, but some believe it is related to the Latin calamellus, a  form of calamus, meaning reed or cane—a reference to sugar cane, we think.

Soft caramel candy is an American invention, though no one is sure when. All that is known is someone added butter and dairy to caramelised sugar and created creme caramels, by the mid 1800s they were featured in recipe books.

All the flavour in this ice cream comes from the caramelised sugar, the aim is to get it as close to black jack (410°F where the sugar turns black and then decomposes) without burning it. A lot of dairy is being added which will weaken the flavour, so a caramel at 320°F which is barely amber won’t be noticeable in the finished product. This lead to me declaring a new stage of sugar, “heart in the throat,” where you’re so afraid to turn away or even blink for fear of it being burnt and ruined before you can add the cream.

This is actually just a standard vanilla ice cream recipe, it’s just the process that’s different. Rather than whisking the eggs and sugar you caramelise the sugar (with a hint of water if you’re not a fan of dry caramel), adding the cream and milk when it hits that “heart in throat” stage, then once it’s whisked together and smooth temper it into the yolks. This takes a little more care as the caramel with cream added will be much hotter than scalded cream that you would usually temper the yolks with. Plus the sugar is usually whisked with the yolks to help stabilise them and prevent them from curdling. So temper slowly and carefully. Then heat gently until it’s coating consistency.

I’m afraid the caramel and tempering happened so fast no photos were forthcoming. This is the mix right before it was chilled though.

This ice cream came out fantastically, definitely one of the winners for the month. The deep bitter undertones reminded some of the tasters of coffee, even some non caramel fans found it pleasing. It’s not super sweet and that’s the key, getting the caramel dark enough so the bitterness counters the sweetness and balances perfectly.

Or What To Do When Your Brown Butter Ice Cream Refuses To Taste Like Brown Butter.

I was so looking forward to making the brown butter ice cream, it’s the one I had to have on the list when I was deciding what to make for this month. It’s light, delicate nutty flavour, smooth and rich. I even had some pecan tartlets on hand, they would complement each other perfectly.

It started like any other ice cream making session. I had my egg yolks and sugar in a bowl, whisked together. And I got my butter going in a small frying pan.

It took a long time, I went for the low-and-slow route for browning. It starts to change colour, it gains little flecks and it has the most amazing nutty aroma. It gets tempered into the eggs and then the ice cream is finished as usual. Strain right at the end to get all those flecks out. Then chill.

I gave it a quick taste before chilling, I was excited to see what it would be like. Nothing! Nada! Not a thing! All I could taste was that teeny tiny teaspoon of vanilla that had gone in there, nothing buttery or nutty at all. But, I didn’t worry, sometimes chilling can make the world of difference to a flavour. Maybe it just needed to be cold for the flavour to come out.

Fast forward to the next day. I take another taste. Still nothing. It’s vanilla ice cream. Albeit a really nice vanilla ice cream, the brown sugar and butter adding depths of flavour and richness. But not a single hint of brown butter.

Well, I can’t just leave it as vanilla, that’s no fun. So I think about ice creams that were on my “maybe” list. Hoky Pokey comes jumping out.

Hokey Pokey (not the song.. which is the hokey cokey to all you Brits out there) is vanilla ice cream with honeycomb in it. Not honeycomb as in from bees, but the candy. Ever had a Crunchie bar (you’ll see them in the imported food isle), no? Well, honeycomb candy is caramelised sugar that you trap carbon dioxide bubbles in, forming a light airy crisp, caramel-y wonderfulness! It’s called honeycomb because the bubbles give it the look of, well, honeycomb (apparently it can also be known as sponge toffee).

Apparently this is a popular flavour in New Zealand, and I recall finding it in some ice cream parlours in the UK. Hokey Pokey was a generic term for the street ice cream vendors in the 19th to early 20th century in England and also New York. I also hear tell that Hokey Pokey is a Cornish term for honeycomb.

Thankfully honeycomb doesn’t take long to whip up (the vital stages come and go quick though, so only photos of the finished article), just boil the sugar and honey with a dash of water to 300F. Then stir in baking soda. It rises alarmingly and you actually want to gently knock it back a little or it will become too airy and collapse. Of course knocking it back too much leaves you with a slab of hard caramel. Pour it out on a tray, greased parchment will do, but any excuse for me to get my trusty silpat out! Leave it to set. It really doesn’t take long. I left it an hour as I pottered about do other bits and pieces, 30 minutes would have done the trick.

Then break it up into pieces. I went for smallish chunks and doing that gave me plenty of crumbs too.

Once the ice cream is churned fold in the chunks and all the crumbs and leave to freeze.

The honeycomb loses some its crispness frozen in the ice cream, except for some of the larger chunks. But finding the pockets of it makes for fun eating. Those crumbs spread throughout the mix adding a nice overall flavour to the ice cream.

Bread pudding is widely considered comfort food here in the southern states, but it was something I had not experienced. I grew up with Bread and Butter pudding, which is sufficiently different.

However the basic premise is the same so I was willing to give it a try. Michael made me my first bread pudding, and we made a couple of variations in class (bread pudding made with croissants is delicious!).

The whole point of bread pudding is to use up stale bread. I said stale, not mouldy, so if you’re bread is growing something go throw it in the compost heap. It’s believed to have originated many centuries ago and has counterparts in Egyptian and Middle Eastern cooking. Originally it wouldn’t have used a custard (since custard didn’t appear until the Middle Ages), but maybe water or milk.

The basic bread pudding chops up stale bread into cubes and then pours a custard (or creme anglais if you’re feeling fancy) over it, preferably while it’s still hot. Then leave it to sit, the custard will soak into the bread forming mush, it doesn’t look attractive. Then once all the bread is soaked and not a trace of staleness remains put it into a baking dish and bake off at 350F until the custard is set.

Of course, you can get adventurous and add fruits and nuts, spices and pretty much anything you like. I’m a fan of raisins, doubly so when they’ve been soaked in rum. You can soak them overnight, or put them in a pan and bring it to a boil then turn it off, the rum will soak in in a couple of hours. Then I sprinkled some vanilla coarse sugar on top for flavour and a little crunch.

Then, just to finish it off, a good caramel sauce is delicious. And since we’re all adults, a little extra rum in the sauce works wonders!

Delicious!

You can even experiment with different breads. A good brioche would made a good pudding, I bet a nice cinnamon bread would too!

We made a caramel ganache to go in some molded truffles, and a cherry bounce cordial, we even coloured the chocolate accordingly. Our favourite piece (and the piece with the most reviews) was a white chocolate lemon truffle piped out and then it had sugar crystals grown onto it to form a protective shell.

Our first attempt at taffy was mostly a success, made with Godiva chocolate liqueur it had a nice smooth flavour. A little too chewy perhaps but fun to make!

We finished with peppermint sticks. Hand pulled and twisted, we definitely need more practice there!

We also made some bacon dog treats for the pups in our lives. All reports indicate that they went down very well indeed!

We hope 2010 brings you nothing but happiness.