Mickey and Minnie Macarons, A Trip to So Cal

One of my favorite treats at Disneyland is

their fresh raspberry Mickey Macaron, found

at the Jolly Holiday Bakery, just at the far end

of Main Street.  My grandkids just can't

get enough of French Macarons, so I decided

to make some for a family dinner.

I used my macaron silpat and picked a spot where

there were three circles.  I started with the center

circle and piped it extra large and to the top of the circle,

and then piped the ears on, using the regular size

of the circle, but bringing it a little closer to

touch the center.  

For the complete recipe click here.

These were so large that I only got 5 double

sided ones out of a batch, so we had the kids

split them.

These are large, but they have to be to fit

all of those luscious raspberries in on top

of the buttercream frosting.

I added a little fondant bow for Minnie's.

I was thinking Disney, because we were heading

to southern California.

My niece and I were headed down to Los Angeles for a Laker's

game.  My friend's husband is one of the coaches

there, so we got to eat in the family room and

have our picture taken in the tunnel.  She is a huge

Laker's fan and we were lucky enough to see

LeBron James play his last game this season,

and Lakers won!!  

Our friend joined us at Disneyland for a day,

and we got to enjoy the gorgeous sunshine -

lacking here at home still.

(The castle is still wrapped up for repainting,

so disappointing!)

Of course, we ate our way through Disneyland.  

These were Butterscotch Beignets - one of their

best seasonal flavors so far.

We always have to enjoy something from

the Cozy Cone.  We got the Chili Cheese and

the Fiesta Cone.

But my new personal favorite is the

Lobster Roll from the Harbour Galley,

right across from the

Haunted Mansion, down by the water.

How had I missed this place for so many years.

The Food and Wine Festival was also going

on.  We tried fried artichokes which were lukewarm

and soggy and disappointing, and a Ghost Pepper

Mac and Cheese, which was hot and spicy, but

quite overcooked.  

But this little Mickey Mouse Chocolate Mousse

was fantastic.  I have to say that saved the Food

and Wine Festival, because we weren't that impressed

with the quality of the other two foods we tried.

Then my niece and I headed over to The

Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal.

We just completed a big 5 week Harry Potter competition

with our Young Single Adult Ward, which I will

post soon, if I ever stay home!!!  But that made

it a perfect time to stop and pick up some prizes

for our Harry Potter competition.

Of course, I had to be dressed in my

Gryffindor sweater, and

we had to eat at the Three Broomsticks.

My niece got Bangers and Mash, which had a wonderful

onion gravy on it,

and she ordered a Butterbeer Potted Cream.

Both were delicious.

I tried the ribs and some Butterbeer ice cream.

We awarded ourselves 150 points each for our

Harry Potter Cup competition, since we traveled

all the way to Hogwarts!

Spoiler alert, Gryffindor still didn't win, but

we picked up some fun prizes for the competition.

I will be posting our whole month's activities

soon, but now hubby and I are off to Highpoint,

for the furniture mart.  We have never gone to it

before, so I hope I have some things to share.

We are always off on some adventure!

French Macarons - Four Ways

It was Christmas Eve day and I decided to have

a little fun in the kitchen, trying to make 

French Macarons

for the first time since our class in Paris

over a year ago.

I am sure I was inspired by our trip to Paris and Germany

where we taste tested many of them.

I had the morning free, and I had purchased the

almond flour some time before from Costco,

where it is more reasonably priced than at

the grocery store, so I decided to give it a try.

(I admit I had been a bit of a chicken, even though

we had all successfully made them in class.)

Click here for the tutorial, giving step by

step instructions.

I wanted to make more than one color,

and more than one flavor, so I deviated

from the above tutorial slightly, in 

that I folded the egg white meringue in

before adding any coloring, then I divided

the batter into three bowls.  Color was added

to the bowls, and the final 50 stirs were done

after coloring was added.  For the pink I used

a powdered food coloring that I had purchased

in Paris at our class, for the green I used gel

food coloring (Americolor in a squeeze bottle - my

personal preference as it doesn't dry out), and

for the white, I left it uncolored.  I felt the gel

food coloring worked just as well as the powdered,

and it is more readily available.

Then I made one batch of buttercream frosting

and divided it into four bowls, one vanilla,

using clear vanilla flavoring, one peppermint, using

creme de menthe flavoring, one key lime, and one almond.

The macarons were decorated prior to baking.  I only had

one failure, and that was that I sprinkled some crushed

peppermint candy on top of the unbaked macarons,

and there was a chemical reaction while baking that 

caused the area where I sprinkled the candy on to

rise up and create an ugly mound - (think surface of

the moon!) so those were taste

testers for hubby!

The almond was generally everyone's favorite,

but I loved all four flavors. 

Refrigerate them and they are even better the next day.

They were a lovely addition to our Christmas Eve

meal and we had some left for the next day.  

The recipe made around 40 - 45.

And yes, I did measure everything out on my 

kitchen scale in grams, and that was easy.

I had also purchased a special silpat baking liner

in Paris that had macaron circles on it, but I

felt they were a little close and some ended up

touching as they baked.  I also had some new

silpat type liners that I had purchased from

Costco.  My old worn, original Silpat brand

worked the best, as they all stuck a little to the

new sheets, but on my old Silpat they came right

off.  I don't know if that was because that was

more seasoned (if that happens with a Silpat,)

or if it was because it was a true Silpat liner,

but it definitely was the best.

So glad I gave them a try.  We will be making a lot

more of these, now that I feel confident to do them,

and I already have people asking me to teach them.

We will have to do a ladies' lunch and teach

French Macarons.

Macaron Cooking Class in Paris

Come with me to some French

cooking classes in Paris.

Today we are making Macarons.

French Macarons are so

popular right now that we decided 

we wanted to take lessons on

how to make them correctly.

They are delicious and beautiful but

very expensive to buy, so

why not try making your own.

Welcome to the kitchen of La Cuisine Paris!

We found them online and everyone

highly recommended them and we do too.

They are located right along

the Seine at 80 Quai de l'Hotel de ville

Everyone we met were so charming and

made you feel so at home.

The classes fill quickly as there are only

8 students in the classes so they are

very hands on.

This is the adorable Frances.

She is from Great Britain and studied

at a culinary school here in Paris and

is now teaching at La Cuisine.  She was

so fun and entertaining.  You will be

charmed to death by her humor and 

fun personality.

We took the special extended

macaron class that taught us about

decorating the outsides of our

macarons to take them up a notch.

I am very glad that we did.  We learned

lots of fun things.

Each class came with detailed recipes

and you were given a pencil to take notes.

Taking classes from trained pastry chefs

is a bit more technical and exacting than

most classes so it is a good idea to take notes.

Everything was weighed (in grams)

and then put through a fine sieve.

She said in her school they made them

sieve the ingredients twice, but we only

did it once.

I fell in love with this fun gadget.

Frances said you can get this at IKEA.

I hope ours has it.  You set the temperature

on the right and then it is connected by

a metal covered wire to the thermometer

which you pop into your liquid. It was

so easy to keep a constant read on

the thermometer.

A sugar syrup is brought to a boil.  If any of it

browns on the edge, just wet a pastry brush

and wash it down in so you don't have

burned sugar on the edge which will affect

your flavor.

When the temperature reached 114C (237 F)

we began beating the egg whites

in the electric mixer.  When it reached

118 C  (244 F.) we removed the sugar mix

from the heat and poured it in a steady

stream into the egg whites.

Let it keep beating until the mix

has cooled to 50 C (120 F).

Meanwhile pour your other portion of

egg whites into your almond flour and

powdered sugar.

Add the food coloring.  French macarons

use such pretty colors.  They will become

significantly lighter after you stir them

into the meringue so go heavy on the

color if you want them bright.

When the meringue has cooled off so that it 

is no longer hot, just a little warm to the

touch it should be stiff and glossy.

Begin to fold the egg whites in 1/4th

at a time.

After you have folded them all in, give it 

about 50 stirs with the spatula.  Now it

should be glossy and run off the spatula 

in a ribbon and the ribbon should disppear

back into the batter in about 15 seconds.

Get ready to pipe.

Try to be as consistent as you can in your sizes.

Drop the pan on the counter several 

times to remove air bubbles.

Decorate tops if desired.

After baking let them cool.

They should have this fun 

little foot around the bottom

but if they don't they will still 

taste great.  All of our turned

out perfectly.

These are hubby's.  

Ok, today at class I told my teacher

that I was trying to convert the

recipes over from grams and he (not Francis

today) said that all of the ingredients are 

weighed when you are working with

breads and pastry and to tell you to 

just get an electronic scale and

weigh them and that your scales

should measure in grams as well

as ounces!  So I am going to give

you the recipe as I received it.

Macaron Cookie

Italian Meringue Method

300 g ground almonds/ almond flour

300 g powdered sugar

110 g egg whites (room temp)

powdered or paste food coloring

(We used powdered.  Liquid will change your consistency.)

300 g  granulated sugar

75 g water

110 g egg whites (room temp)

Sift the almond flour and powdered

sugar into a large bowl.  Add the first

110 g. of egg whites and food coloring

to desired color.  Remember as you lighten

this with the whipped meringue the color

will lighten up substantially.

Place the remaining 110 g egg whites in

the bowl of a Kitchenaid mixer with the whisk

attachment.   Do not

start to beat yet, just set aside.

Meanwhile in a small saucepan

place the granulated sugar and water

and begin to bring it to a boil.

When the sugar mixture gets to

114 C or 237 F

turn your Kitchenaid on at high

with the whisk attachment.  Let it run

at high while sugar syrup continues to

boil until 118 C or 244 F.

(Frances said this is the perfect amount of time

for the eggs to whip and it worked great.)

When it reaches 118 C or 244 F, take the

syrup off the heat and while the

Kitchenaid is running pour the sugar

syrup slowly into the egg whites.  

Let the beater continue until the meringue

reaches 50 C or 120 F.  It should now be

glossy and not fall out if the bowl is tipped over.  

(We didn't use a thermometer, we just touched the

bottom of the bowl, it was still slightly warm but

not hot.)

Now comes the sacrifice!

You will stir 1/4th of the egg white meringue

into your almond flour mixture.  You can just

stir this in - you are sacrificing this part of the

egg white and not trying to keep the air of the

meringue.

Next you will fold 1/3 of the remaining meringue

into the mixture using a rubber spatula and 

gently folding it over and over until no

white streaks appear.  Do this with the 

second third, gently folding it in until no 

white streaks remain and finish the same way

with the third and final addition of egg whites.

Now you want to stir the mixture about

50 times.  You are trying to now achieve

a mix that will run off your spoon in a ribbon

rather than clump off and fall back into the

bowl.  After this stirring a ribbon of

batter should disappear into the 

bowl of batter by the count of 15.  

Now your batter should be ready to

pipe into a large pastry bag with a 10 mm

round pastry tip.  Place about half the

batter into the bag and using a plastic

scraper, scrape the batter down and

try to get all of the bubbles out.

Now begin the fun of piping rounds.

We piped onto a Silpat liner.  You want

to create all of your rounds the same size.

You can "cheat" by drawing circles or

just eyeball it and try to create them the

same size.  If I were making tons I would

want to use a circle template.

When you have piped the entire pan

with your desired size of macaron

(they can be small, medium or large)

lift the pan and drop it onto the counter

several times to remove air bubbles.  If

you have any large air bubbles remaining,

use a toothpick to pop them.  

Now is the time to decorate them if you

desire.  Sprinkle on chopped pistachios,

sanding sugar, shaved chocolate, or anything

you like.  

Let them rest

on the counter for about 30 minutes.

Pre-heat the oven to 160 C or 320 F.  

Bake for about 12 minutes or until cookie

does not wiggle when you touch it.  Let cool.

It should remove easily from the pan if it

has cooked enough.

(Everyone says humidity can affect these

so I don't know that I would make them

on a rainy day!)

Once they are cool you can pipe

chocolate on for decor if you like.  

Let the chocolate set before you sandwich

them.

When they are cool fill with

buttercream, jam or ganache.

We made chocolate ganache, orange infused

chocolate ganache and a white chocolate and

raspberry ganache.

Try to sandwich similar sized cookies together.

You can also pipe them into shapes like the

hearts.

You can sandwich different colors together.

These are so pretty.  They will be crunchy

the first day but after one day in the fridge

they should soften to perfection.  They are

fresh and have no preservatives so they

should keep 3-4 days refrigerated.

This was the dessert Francis

made for each of us with our

initial written in food markers. 

This is a French J for me.

She used a large macaron on the 

bottom and topped it with a circle

of whipped cream which she filled

with the white chocolate and raspberry

ganache and then a few fresh raspberries.

She topped it with a small cookie and 

then drizzled it with melted chocolate.

It was fabulous and would amaze

all of your friends and family and

this way you wouldn't even have to

worry about making them the same

size!!

By the way, today is my 

FOUR YEAR BLOG ANNIVERSARY!

What better way than to be taking cooking

classes and sharing them with you!

Two times my blog has disappeared

so I print it out on Blog2print

about every six months and 

now have 6 volumes.  It is a

fun family history that I have

sitting out in my living room.

I never want to lose all of the

fun things I have blogged.

Thanks for sharing in 4 years with me!