The tartness of the passion fruit purée balanced out the sweetness of the white cholocate. The macarons tasted like eating a real passion fruit. YUM!

The milk chocolate ganache has Mexican vanilla and a generous amount of cinnamon. The shells have a hint of bittersweet chocolate and are sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.

Angelina is a tea room in Paris, located across the street from the Louvé museum. They are very famous for their hot chocolate – apparently this is where Audrey Hepburn would go for hot chocolate. The other thing they are known for is Mont Blanc, a dessert with a meringue base and topped with whipped cream and chestnut cream vermicelli. Here is a blog post i found about the Mont Blanc: Paris Breakfasts

I was instantly inspired to go home and experiment with this new ingredient.

I made a light chestnut buttercream with the chestnut cream, chestnut puree, rum, vanilla, sugar, and butter. For the cookies, I added chestnut puree and espresso powder into the meringue batter to add some depth to the macaron.

Take-away for all my other friends – give and you shall receive!

Here is the recipe I used. It is adapted from Pierre Hermé’s recipe, but I did make some adjustments that seem to produce better results with my ingredients and equipment.

Eden Macarons
Peach, apricot, and saffron

Macaron shells

300 grams ground almonds
300 grams powdered sugar
130 grams aged egg whites
yellow food coloring
red food coloring
+
300 grams caster sugar
75 grams water
130 grams aged egg whites

Sift together powdered sugar and ground almonds. Stir food coloring into the first portion of aged egg whites. Pour the egg whites over mixture of powdered sugar and ground almonds but do not stir.

Bring water and sugar to boil at 118 degrees Celsius. When the syrup reaches 115 degrees Celsius, simultaneously start whisking the second portion of aged egg whites to soft peaks. When the sugar reaches 118 degrees, pour it over the egg whites. Whisk and allow the meringue to cool down to 50 degrees, and then fold it into the almond-sugar mixture. Spoon the batter into a piping bag fitted with a plain nozzle.

Pipe rounds of batter about 3.5 cm in diameter, spacing them 2 cm apart on baking trays lined with Silpat mats. Slam the baking trays on the work surface to eliminate air bubbles. Leave the shells to stand for at least 30 minutes until they form a skin.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius then put the trays in the oven. Bake for 12 minutes quickly opening and shutting the oven door twice during cooking time. Out of the oven, slide the shells on to the work surface.

Optional: to give the shells some iridescence, brush some edible gold luster dust on the shells with a paint brush.

Peach and saffron ganache with apricot

A dozen saffron threads
20 grams heavy cream
370 grams white chocolate
425 grams ripe white peaches
20 grams lemon juice
10 grams freeze dried apricots

Bring cream to boil, then take it off the heat and add saffron threads. Cover with a lid and allow to infuse for 10 minutes. Chop up the chocolate and melt it in a bowl over a pan of barely simmering
water.

Peel the peaches, halve them and remove the pits. Blend the peach flesh into a puree with the lemon juice. Strain it finely. Heat the peach puree to a temperature of no more than 40 degrees Celsius and add the freeze-dried apricots.

Pour the heated peach puree and cream infused with saffron over the melted chocolate and whisk.

Transfer the mixture to a gratin dish. Press cling film over the surface of the ganache, and then set aside in the fridge for the ganache to thicken.

Spoon the ganache into the piping bag fitted with a plain nozzle. Pipe a generous amount of ganache on to half the shells and top with the remaining shells.

Let the macarons sit in the refrigerator for 24 hours before serving.

This is the finished macaron on Jen and Sara’s fancy custom party coasters.

The party was fun and the macarons were a hit. I felt honored to be a part of the event. Hope this is the beginning of more events!

Crumble and Flake Patisserie has been the latest pastry buzz in Seattle. I went to their grand opening in May and was impressed with their macarons, so I decided to come back to see if my first experience held up. I waited in line for 45 minutes to get my hands on their macaron offerings of the day: black currant, milk chocolate with lime and chile, and yuzu raspberry.

At the same time, my friend Lisa came back from another trip to Italy and yes, Paris (my eyes rolling enviously). As promised, she brought me back some macarons from Ladurée and Pierre Hermé. For those of you that aren’t familiar with these names, the original Parisian macaron was invented at Ladurée, and Pierre Hermé is known to have the most decadent, avant garde macaron creations in the world. I was in for a REAL treat.

The Ladurée macaron flavors: caramel, lemon, vanilla, raspberry, and espresso.

The Pierre Hermé macaron flavors: Eden (peach, apricot, and saffron), Infiniment Jasmin (jasmine tea), Plénitude (chocolate and caramel), Mosaic (pistachio, cinnamon, and Griottines cherries), Mogador (milk chocolate and passion fruit), Infiniment Chocolat Porcelana (pure origin Venezuelan chocolate), Infiniment Caramel (salted butter caramel).

After waiting patiently for these beautiful pictures to be taken, I got down to business.

After two rounds of tasting each macaron, I decided on my favorites. But first, let me be very clear. All of these macarons were exceptional, and most macarons I’ve had up until now cannot be compared. The biggest difference is in the quality of ingredients. You can taste the real fruit and high quality chocolate in these macarons, instead of artificial flavorings as often seen. I definitely feel privileged to have had this experience.

So with that…

My top pick: Eden macaron from Pierre Hermé. The ripeness of the peach and apricot and the fragrant saffron left a lingering and pleasantly intoxicating sensation long after I finished the macaron. It really was the best macaron I’ve ever tasted.

Second place: vanilla macaron from Ladurée. The flavor was very clean and smooth. Laduree definitely does the classic flavors very well. If you only taste one macaron in your life, you won’t be disappointed with this one.

Third place: yuzu raspberry macaron from Crumble and Flake. The flavor was light and refreshing. These definitely had the upper hand on texture, since they were freshly baked and endured the least amount of travel. They had a perfect eggshell crust and was moist and delicate inside. These are the only macarons that I would recommend in Seattle. Well… besides ‘tine macarons of course.

For the earl grey cookies, I added 2 teaspoons ground tea leaves and some blue food coloring into the meringue batter.

The baked cookies have the the perfect shade of blue grey.

For the earl grey ganache, I infused 2 teaspoons of loose leaf tea leaves into the cream. After 10 minutes, I strained the tea leaves out and whisked the cream with melted white chocolate.

I love the way these macarons turned out. The bitter tea balances out the sweetness of the white chocolate and smells absolutely amazing.

You might have also noticed the wonderful pictures on this post. Photo credits go to Diane and her fancy SLR camera. What more can I say? We make a great team.

Today I received a wonderful care package from my cousin Kiyomi who lives in Tokyo. From the moment she saw my first macaron pictures, she has been a great supporter of my endeavors. The care package is filled with specialty ingredients to experiment with macarons. I haven’t opened any of the packaging, but can already smell all the intoxicating aromas.

Some of the ingredients: sakura (cherry blossom) powder, preserved sakura flowers, preserved sakura leaves, sakura extract, yuzu (Japanese citrus) paste, yuzu powder, and goma (black sesame) powder.

I can’t wait to start experimenting! Stay posted for my sakura macarons.

Growing up, I wasn’t a big chocolate fan. I never liked Easter chocolate bunnies or M&Ms. The ones I did like usually had nuts or other crunchy bits in them, such as Snickers or Krackle bars. As an adult, I have been introduced to many chocolates that really are good. Salted caramels, toffee, and hazelnuts are my favorite. I guess my taste hasn’t changed much, but if its good, I’m less likely to pass up some free chocolates now.

These macarons are inspired by Ferrero Rocher chocolates. The shells are made with half hazelnut flour, half almond flour with a touch of cocoa and finished with crushed Gavotte crepe cookies for crunch. The filling is milk chocolate ganache with a hazelnut and Gavotte praline.

In progress:

Finished product:

The cookies have a generous sprinkle of cinnamon sugar and the filling is vanilla bean ganache with creme fraiche and more cinnamon.

These turned out soooo yummy! This is definitely a new favorite!

Now my only hope is that they taste just as great when Ashley receives her package.

To my surprise, that was it! When my oven signaled that is was pre-heated to 350 degrees, the oven thermometer actually read 210 degrees. It took over half an hour and increasing the oven temperature to 400 degrees to reach the correct temperature.

This is the oven thermometer that I purchased:

The cooled cookies feel hard, but we shall see how they end up after they are filled and have rested for a day.