Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Pecan praline black bottom bars. I cannot ever get brownie oven temperature right.



I tried a new macaron recipe! Macarons au blanc monté. Those was the kind of macarons that I first began with, and all failed miserably. So I was hesistant to step away from macaron au sucre cuit recipe that I use all the time. The latter requires an Italian meringue and sugar syrups and precise measurements. The first kind of macarons are as simple as making dacquoise, and for the first time I viewed macarons as baking rather than some complicated chemistry ritual.

Macarons au blanc monte are unstable, maybe I failed then because I didnt have any experience in baking macarons. Macaron au sucre cuit was a bridge for me. Im not an entire convert, either, although the easier kind tastes better (though denser) because of the higher proportion of almonds.


Valrhona dark chocolate Macarons. Adapted slightly from Chef Pang's (Canele) macaron recipe.

MACARON GLACEE! Ugly pictures, ice cream isnt cooperative when it comes to photos. Yes, Im so in love, its a first try though. I think the ice cream scoops are ugly. Macarons dont freeze, with such a high proportion of sugar (hygroscopic). So they remain the same texture as they are at room temperature, and the ice cream isnt all soft when you assemble and freeze ahead of time.


Dark chocolate macarons with hazelnut gelato.


Big fat scoop of gelato.

Chocolate strawberry macarons. I filled the macarons with dark chocolate ganache and sliced strawberries. The rest of the shells were raspberry chocolate; a raspberry hidden in chocolate ganache. Except that the raspberries werent good ones. You can never find flavourful berries in a tropical country.



Black cherry ice cream. I wonder how it turns a vivid purple when cherry puree is such a dark black-red. Looks more like fresh fig ice cream, but I love it anyway(: