A Baked Creation: holly

Showing posts with label holly. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

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

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.
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.
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.
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.
When the batter is ready, fill your piping bag and pipe circles on the parchment paper.
Carefully tap your tray against the table or counter to eliminate air bubbles.
After piping, add the sprinkles on top. Let the macarons rest in room temperature for 15-30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 300°F (325°F for non-convection oven, although convection oven are preferred for macarons).
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.
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

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 the vanilla 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.
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!

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Couple's Christmas Cupcakes

It is Christmas Eve!

We have a family friend who is currently in Korea for EPIK. Amy keeps a blog about her experiences there and takes some fabulous photography. Well, the LDR (long distance relationship) isn't keeping her from giving her boyfriend a Christmas surprise this year! So she creatively schemed up a plot that would leave him unsuspicious for his surprise. How could we not help? Tim likes fruits on his cakes, so we make chocolate cupcakes with chocolate-orange buttercream sprinkled with candied orange zest. She mailed her Christmas card and I also picked up a gift card for her. Some stores are not available in Korea... hehe! Amy also sent me a recipe to make candied orange zest. This was my first time making them, I love how in some of the candies you can still see the texture of the orange!

Merry Xmas Tim! This is your surprise Christmas present from Amy!

Snowflake, holly, fondant message plaque, and candied orange zest!

Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate-orange buttercream decorated with a small fondant heart. These hearts were featured on foodgawker!

The happy snow couple holding hands. Watch out, the snow just might melt! The fondant heart and frosting is covering the view, but you can see the couple holding hands from above!

Candied Orange Zest

Adapted from RecipeTips

2 Oranges

1/3 cup of water

1/3 cup of sugar

Wash the oranges thoroughly. Peel the oranges and set the orange peels them in a sauce pan of cold water.
Cook until the water simmers for about 5 minutes.
Remove the orange peels from the sauce pan, drain, and place them in cold water. This cools the orange peels so that you can work with it.
Using a melon baller, scrape the pith (the bitter white layers on the orange peels) off and then cut the orange zest into strips.
In the sauce pan, add the 1/3 cup of water and sugar. Put the orange zest strips in the sauce pan and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. The strips should turn translucent and the sugar water should thicken.
Remove the orange zest from the sauce pan and let it cool on a sheet of wax paper. Separate the candied orange zest before it cools (otherwise they'll stick together).
Then, if you prefer, roll the strips in sugar until they are well covered and allow them to cool completely before storing in an airtight container. You can eat the candied orange zest as is, or use them as sprinkles over cupcakes!

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Winter Party Cupcakes

'Tis the season to entertain! We were asked to make chocolate cupcakes for a winter-themed holiday party that incorporated chocolate-orange and mint. For the decorations, we made a cute assortment of mittens, snow people, snowflakes, and holly. As always, check out our flickr photostream or become a fan on our facebook page for more photos! Our previous cupcake projects can be found categorized on the right side-bar (or scroll down to go to the next page).