Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Nov 25: Pre-Thanksgiving Baking

A difficult thing for me is to figure out what to bring to a Thanksgiving Dinner.
I've been wanting to try Macarons again so I was formulating whether I should give it another go.
Initially, the chocolate macarons was on my mind. They were like brownies but different.

However, as I started, I used my new favorite snack - shelled, roasted, unsalted pistachios.

Pistachio Macarons (Basis is batch 6 from my DB Challenge - Macarons.
Preheat oven 280F

2 egg whites

35 g granulated sugar
135 g powdered sugar
40 g slivered blanched almonds
35 g roasted, unsalted pistachios

1) Microwave egg whites 7 seconds... stop... microwave 5 more seconds.

2) Add the nuts to a food processor. Add about 1 T of the powdered sugar. Process for about 1 minutes.

3) Into a bowl, add the ground nuts and the rest of the powdered sugar. Mix to combine.

4) Beat the egg whites... when egg whites are near soft peaks, start adding granulated sugar and beat until stiff peaks are achieved.

5) Sift the dry ingredients into the egg whites.

6) Mix the ingredients together.
As you mix, you'll see the dry ingredients wet out and eventually the mixture will become shiny. Also, the mixture will flow a little.


7) Pipe onto parchment and allow form a skin.
However, I actually skipped this step since I make larger macarons so they were starting to merge.

Success! Got Feet!


Gananche Filling
1/2 C Heavy Cream
2 t Light Corn Syrup... However, I did add 1 t of Golden syrup and 1 t of corn syrup.
4 oz Chocolate
1 T Butter
2 T Raspberry Preserves (optional)

1) Heat the heavy cream, preserves and the syrup until the mixture boils at the edges.

2) Strain the mixture (to catch the raspberry seeds) onto the chocolate and let sit about 5 mintues.

3) After 5 minutes, mix to blend. Slowly add the butter as you mix.

4) Refrigerate to thicken.

The final macarons


Shiny and cripy on the outside. Soft on the inside.

4 comments:

shawn said...

Pistachio's are a fabulous addition! Have you thought about making spumoni ice cream? It's very hard to find at the grocer's. I bet it would go great with your macaron's! :)

Eat4Fun said...

As I was adding the chocolate and pistachios I was thinking about Spumoni ice cream. GMTA! :-)

Shawn said...

So... are you saying that's next? Do you have an ice cream machine? Wasn't it you who said that ice cream was evil? So... guess that means I will have to suffer and eat your share. :P

Eat4Fun said...

My general saying is "milk and dairy products are evil." No, I don't have an ice cream machine, but have been known to eat a little ice cream on occasion since it's not as evil as milk and sour cream. However, you can have my share of the ice cream if you like... I'm not going to miss it. lol!