Festive Macarons

More macarons Sylvia? Really?

Yes, I know. I'm going crazy over macarons this year. I made some more to bring to a holiday party and I'm loving how I can customize and decorate these delicate cookies.

French Meringue Macarons
Recipe from Macarons
(Makes about 40-50 macarons)

2 3/4 cups of almond flour
2 3/4 cups of powdered sugar
1 cup of egg whites (from 6-7 eggs)
A pinch of salt
3/4 cups of granulated sugar

1. The first step in making successful macarons is to age your egg whites. Separate your egg whites 2-3 days before baking. Cover and store them in the refrigerator. Two hours before you start making your macarons, take the egg whites out of the refrigerator, uncover them, and let them come to room temperature.
2. Sift the almond flour and powdered sugar together. If you have a food processor, put both ingredients in to create as fine as a texture as possible. This helps create smooth macaron shells.
3. Using the whisk attachment on your mixer, whisk the egg whites with the salt. Pour the granulated sugar in three stages. Dumping it all in can deflate the egg whites, so you want to add a little bit at a time. When the egg whites reach stiff peaks, turn the mixer off.
4. Fold the sifted almond flour and sugar with the egg whites. You want to end up with a smooth batter that creates a ribbon when you lift it up from your spatula.
5. When the batter is ready, fill your piping bag and pipe circles on the parchment paper.
6. Carefully tap your tray against the table or counter to eliminate air bubbles.
7. After piping, add the sprinkles on top. Let the macarons rest in room temperature for 15-30 minutes.
8. Preheat the oven to 300°F (325°F for non-convection oven, although convection oven are preferred for macarons).
9. Bake your first tray of macarons for 14 minutes. After the first five minutes, open the oven doors to let out some of the steam.
10. When they're done, let them cool for 5 minutes and then gently peel the macarons off the parchment paper.

If you need some  macaron tutorials or visuals, check out the three videos that Mardi of eat. live. travel. write. made. She shows the three main stages of making macarons: whipping the egg whites, folding the batter, and piping the macarons. Chances are, one of those sections are where most people get stuck!

Vanilla Pastry Cream
Recipe from Desserts by Pierre Hermé
(Makes enough to fill each macaron, with leftovers)

2 cups milk
1 vanilla bean, halved and scraped
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch, sifted
3 1/2 tablespoons butter

1. Flatten the vanilla bean and slice it open with a sharp knife. Peel the bean open and scrape the seeds out with the knife.
2. In a small pot, bring the milk with the vanilla bean with scrapings to a boil, set it aside to cool for 10 minutes. Remove the vanilla bean.
3. Fill a large bowl with cold water (or ice).
4. In a medium sized pan or small pot, whisk the egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch together. Gradually whisk in the hot milk.
5. Place the pan over high heat and bring it to a boil, whisking vigorously for 1 to 2 minutes. Set the bowl in the ice bath or cold water and stir until the temperature reaches 140°F (60°C) on an instant-read thermometer.
6. Stir in the butter. Cool, cover, and refrigerate.
7. Fill a piping bag with the pastry cream to pipe.

Top tier: I made holly using three red confetti sprinkles. For the holly leaves, I used two tree sprinkles.
Bottom tier: I simply placed red, green, and white confetti sprinkles on the macarons - this one is the easiest as they'll look festive no matter what.

You can go an even simpler route and place one festive icon in the middle of the macaron, here I chose the Christmas tree.

Something even easier, add some coloured sugar sprinkles in a line or waves. I did a few in red, green, and white which creates a nice shimmer and adds a crunchy texture to your macaron.

A tip, do not use jimmies or nonpareils, the colour on these will bleed off and smudge the look or design you're going for. Probably any kind of sprinkle that looks glossy will not work, stick to the matte ones! Happy macaron designing!

Snowmen Macarons

This Christmas, instead of going out and buying sweets, I decided to make them for my colleagues. This was the weekend to make them as some of my coworkers start their holiday next week (including myself)!

I knew I wanted to make macarons again, they're quite the hit in our area, we've even celebrated birthdays with macarons instead of cupcakes lately! Now, to look for festive macaron ideas, I browsed a number of blogs before coming across these from Steph at Raspberri Cupcakes (an amazing blog - go check it out). Ridiculously cute, right?

French Meringue Macarons
Recipe from Macarons
(Makes about 48 snowmen macarons)

2 3/4 cups of almond flour
2 3/4 cups of powdered sugar
1 cup of egg whites (from 6-7 eggs)
A pinch of salt
3/4 cups of granulated sugar.

1. The first step in making successful macarons is to age your egg whites. Yes, we know, this sounds odd, but follow these strict instructions! So separate your egg whites 2-3 days before baking. Store them in the refrigerator - covered. Two hours before you start making your macarons, take the egg whites out of the refrigerator, uncover them, and let them come to room temperature. That's not too difficult! Just keep this in mind during your planning stage.
2. Next, sift the almond flour and powdered sugar. If you have a food processor, put both ingredients in to create as fine as a texture as possible. This helps create smooth macarons.
3. Using the whisk attachment on your mixer, whisk the egg whites with the salt. Pour the granulated sugar in three stages. Dumping it all in can deflate the egg whites, so you want to add a little bit at a time. When the egg whites reach stiff peaks, you're done!
4. Fold the sifted almond flour and sugar with the egg whites. You want to end up with a smooth batter that creates a ribbon when you lift it up from your spatula.
5. When the batter is ready, fill your piping bag and pipe the body of the snowmen on parchment paper. Then go back and add the head of the snowmen. Carefully tap your tray against the table or counter to eliminate air bubbles.
6. Add three silver dragées for buttons as the macarons are resting. Let them rest in room temperature for 15-30 minutes.
7. Preheat the oven to 300°F (325°F for non-convection oven, the cookbook recommends using a convection oven because of the even distribution of heat).
8. Bake your first tray of macarons for 14 minutes. After the first five minutes, open the oven doors to let out some of the steam.
9. When they're done, let them cool for 5 minutes and then gently peel the macarons off the parchment paper.

Snowmen with silver buttons and feet!

Phew! Adding the decoration on top of the macaron batter was a first, so I'm glad that worked out!

After the macarons were cooled and rested, I used my handy orange edible ink pen to draw on the carrot noses.

Then, using the black edible ink pen for the eyes and mouth.

Look at them! I filled these bad boys with vanilla pastry cream!

Vanilla Pastry Cream
Recipe from Desserts by Pierre Hermé
(Makes enough to fill each macaron, with leftovers)

2 cups milk
1 vanilla bean, halved and scraped
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch, sifted
3 1/2 tablespoons butter

1. Flatten the vanilla bean and slice it open with a sharp knife. Peel the bean open and scrape the seeds out with the knife. 
2. In a small pot, bring the milk with the vanilla bean with scrapings to a boil, set it aside to cool for 10 minutes; remove bean. 
3. Fill a large bowl with cold water (or ice). 
4. In a medium sized pan or small pot, whisk the egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch together. Gradually whisk in the hot milk. 
5. Place the pan over high heat and bring it to a boil, whisking vigorously for 1 to 2 minutes. Set the bowl in the ice bath or cold water and stir until the temperature reaches 140°F (60°C) on an instant-read thermometer. 
6. Stir in the butter. Cool, cover, and refrigerate.

Here's the second tray!

Gosh, they're really cute.

I only did a round macaron for the back of the snowmen. I think I should have made the full body for the back too.

Next time!

Here are some happy snowmen frolicking in the snow.

These ones don't look as happy.

Nor do these, a big snowstorm would mean getting covered up!

To package up my snowmen macarons, I went to find cute little take-out boxes. There were so many festive boxes to choose from, but I thought these Santa ones were really eye-catching!

Carefully tucking the macarons in with parchment paper. Everyone gets five! Is five enough?

I had extra snowmen macarons, so I placed them in sandwich bags and twist-tied them. It wasn't difficult to find homes for these ones in the office.

Disclaimer: This year, A Baked Creation is partnering up with Robin Hood®, who is celebrating the 30th anniversary of their annual Holiday Recipe Collection. They were kind enough to send us a baking package and it included the silver dragées!

So glad we could put them to good use already! Here's to the first of many baking memories this season!

Mille Crêpes Cake

Happy birthday to my sweetheart, Howard! As some of you know, he was born on Groundhog Day and that his favourite cake is the mille crêpes cake from Lady M. To celebrate, I wanted to make him the same cake, but of course there isn't an official Lady M recipe. Luckily, the internet has many speculations on how the cake is made.

The one I followed is from the New York Times. In the article, the author uses the crêpe recipe from Joy of Cooking and the vanilla pastry cream from Desserts by Pierre Hermé and added whipped cream.

Mille Crêpes Cake
(Makes about 1 eight-inch cake)

For the crêpe batter:
6 tablespoons butter
3 cups milk
6 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
7 tablespoons sugar
A pinch salt

For the vanilla pastry cream:
2 cups milk
1 vanilla bean, halved and scraped
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch, sifted
3 1/2 tablespoons butter

For the assembly, this was adapted from the original article:
Vegetable oil
2 cups heavy cream
2 tablespoon sugar or more

1. Make the crêpe batter and the pastry cream the day before. 
2. Crêpe batter: In a small pan, cook the butter until brown. Set it aside. In a small pot, heat the milk until it starts steaming and then set it aside to cool for 10 minutes. On medium-low speed with your mixer, beat together the eggs, flour, sugar, and salt. Slowly add the hot milk and browned butter to the mixture. Pour the batter into a container, cover and refrigerate overnight.
3. Pastry cream: Flatten the vanilla bean and slice it open with a sharp knife. Peel the bean open and scrape the seeds out with the knife. In a small pot, bring the milk with the vanilla bean with scrapings to a boil, set it aside to cool for 10 minutes; remove bean. Fill a large bowl with cold water (or ice). In a medium sized pan or small pot, whisk the egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch together. Gradually whisk in the hot milk. Place the pan over high heat and bring it to a boil, whisking vigorously for 1 to 2 minutes. Set the bowl in the ice bath or cold water and stir until the temperature reaches 140°F (60°C) on an instant-read thermometer. Stir in the butter. Cool, cover, and refrigerate.
4. The next day, bring the batter and pastry cream to room temperature. Place a nonstick 8-inch pan over medium heat. Swab the surface with the oil, then add about 2-3 tablespoons of batter and swirl to cover the surface. Cook until the bottom just begins to brown, about 1 minute, then carefully lift an edge and flip the crêpe. Cook on the other side for no longer than 5-10 seconds. Carefully flip the crêpe onto a baking sheet lined with parchment. Repeat until you have 20 perfect crêpes.
   
5. Use a mixer to whip the heavy cream with the sugar - it won't hold strong peaks. Fold it into the pastry cream.
6. To assemble, lay a crêpe on a plate. Pipe or use an icing spatula to completely cover the crêpe with a thin layer of pastry cream (about 1/4 cup). Cover the pastry cream layer with a crêpe and repeat to make a stack of 20, with the best-looking crepe on top. Chill for at least 2 hours. Set it out for 30 minutes in room temperature before serving.
   
7. If you have a kitchen torch, sprinkle the top crepe with granulated sugar and caramelize with the torch.

I know it wasn't necessary, but I went out to get a kitchen torch anyways. They weren't too expensive, I was bracing myself to spend around $30 for one and was surprised to find it on sale for $13 at the Bay! The torch isn't filled, so we made a trip to Canadian Tire to find butane fuel, $5.

I made the crêpes batter and pastry cream the night before. The next morning, I stood in front of the stove for hours to cook those crêpes. Then I stood for another hour at the table icing each layer. I even sprinkled the top layer with sugar. Then along comes Howard to perform the fun part. Caramelizing! 

At least I got to take the photos.

I'm kidding, it was great seeing him have so much fun with the torch. And the torch was worth it. That top crunchy layer is the best. I mean, the cake is amazing as a whole, but if it were just layers of crunchy crêpes, that would be awesome too!

We are highly recommending that you try making this cake. Sure, the edges will be ruffled (Howard picked out our black ruffled cake stand to go with this cake) and not as neatly stacked as Lady M's, but the cake itself is tasty and the texture is delicious!