French Macarons by Cake-Cetera

Have you heard of Cake-Cetera? It's founded by Pauline who was inspired to set up the business after losing her mum to cancer. She was shocked to find out that flowers were banned from wards. She found that most people brought in cake instead hence the idea for Cake-Cetera. She started making and delivering cakes from home in Glasgow and has now expanded to extend deliveries nationwide. 

Their motto is 'Say it with Cake, yummy goodness right to your door' and I can't agree more! I only ever get bills or junk mail through my letterbox so it was very exciting to open a lovely box of treats. I received a box of 12 French macarons to try. My first impressions were that it's beautifully packaged and they arrived in one piece apart from a small crack in one of them. I always thought macarons are quite fragile so I was surprised to see that they survived the postal journey. 

It comes in a little black box which can easily fit through most letterboxes. It was packaged in another brown box which is not shown here. 

I love the beautiful colours and the display. It comes with a little information card listing the ingredients and allergy advice. There is 2 of each flavour which is handy for J and I so there's no fighting!  

The flavours are vanilla, pistachio, coffee, raspberry, lemon and chocolate. The macarons were of the same size and shape and they all have the characteristic 'feet' which I find really hard to achieve in my own kitchen. We tried each flavour and came up with our list of favourites. For J his preference was raspberry, lemon, pistachio, chocolate, coffee, vanilla. For me my preference was raspberry, coffee, lemon, chocolate, pistachio, vanilla. 

The macarons were light and held their shape well. They were just sweet enough without being overly sweet which can be a problem sometimes. Our favourite was the raspberry one because it had a strong raspberry flavour and the filling was similar to a raspberry jam. J does not like coffee in desserts which is probably why it ranked 5th for him but I thought it was very good. It had a strong coffee flavour without being overpowering. The chocolate and pistachio were in the middle and we both agreed that the lemon was also quite good. The vanilla was our least favourite as it seemed a bit lacking in flavour and taste. 

My verdict - I like the concept of ordering baked goods online to be delivered which is particularly handy for family or friends who live further afield. The macarons were of good quality and they were well packaged ensuring that they arrived in one piece. It's also a great gift for a special occasion and they have a wide range of different treats on their site.

Disclaimer: I was sent a box of 12 macarons for review purposes. A positive review was not required and all opinions expressed are my own. This is not a sponsored post. 

Raspberries and Cream Macarons

I've been really busy this week so I haven't had time to bake or blog. I had a bit of spare time yesterday evening and I thought I would participate in Random Recipes hosted by Dom from Belleau Kitchen.  The challenge this month was to count to book number 17 and then pick a random recipe from the book. So I went to my bookshelf and started counting and shook my head in disbelief. 

 

I'm pretty sure Dom and Choclette hatched a plot and secretly counted the books on my shelf when they chose the number 17!! So much for a nice, quick easy bake and an early evening. I was really hoping for a cake or a cookie.  Dom - please take note that there was definitely NO cheating involved as I would not have voluntarily picked this book at present given my recent macaron failures.  On the bright side, I've obviously never made anything from this book before and one of the great things about this challenge is making use of my ever growing stack of cookbooks so thank you :) 

It's a great little book all about macarons. There are pretty pictures and clear instructions with step by step photos. I particularly like the recipes in this book because there is no egg wastage.  The egg whites are used for the shells and the egg yolks for the filling. I would say these were a semi-success, far from perfect but I'm glad I tried them again. I particularly liked the filling - I could just eat it on it's own! I think I can now say with confidence that I've conquered my fear of macarons :)

 randomly opened to... strawberries & cream ... looks very pretty which makes me even more nervous. Plus, I've run out of strawberry jam so it's raspberries and cream for me

 I didn't have any vanilla pods either so I used a tablespoon of vanilla bean paste - smells amazing and you can see the flecks of vanilla seeds if you look closely enough

 you are supposed to mix to a ribbon like texture... so far so good.... 

 Glitter makes everything better

 A skin formed - honestly! 

 I couldn't resist peeking into the oven... looks good :) 

 ta-da! 

 look there's feet!! 

 whisking egg yolks, sugar and cornflour... 

 to make a custard like filling...

 ready for the fillings

 jam on one side, custard-cream filling on the other 

 mini macs just because everything looks better in miniature form!

 I'm so super proud of myself!! :) 

I'm also sneakily entering this to AlphaBakes even though the deadline has passed as Caroline has generously agreed to add my little macarons to the round up. What are the chances of picking a random recipe that begins with the random letter "M" that we picked for our challenge? It has to be allowed :)

 And to Sweets for a Saturday hosted by Lisa from Sweet as Sugar Cookies

Recipe from Macarons by Annie Rigg, published by Ryland Peters & Small, photography by Kate Whitaker - reproduced with kind permission from the publisher (with minor edits from me in the method section)

For the macaron shells

200g icing sugar
100g ground almonds
120 - 125g egg whites (approx 3 egg whites)
a pinch of salt
40g caster sugar
1 vanilla pod split lengthways (I used vanilla bean paste)
red edible glitter

For the filling


Raspberry jam (original recipe states strawberry jam)
3 egg yolks
75g caster sugar
1 tablespoon cornflour
250ml milk
1 vanilla pod, split lengthways (I used vanilla bean paste)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, diced
100ml double cream

• Blend the icing sugar and ground almonds for 30 seconds until thoroughly combined and set aside. 
• Whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they hold a stiff peak. 
• Continue to whisk at medium speed while adding the caster sugar a teaspoonful at a time.
• The mixture should be thick, white and glossy.
• Using a large metal spoon, fold the ground almond and sugar mixture into the egg whits. 
• Continue folding until a ribbon-like texture as shown above. 
• Fill a piping bag with the mixture and pipe evenly sized rounds onto a baking sheet (I used a silicone mat which you can buy online here)
• Tap the bottom of the baking sheets sharply, once, on the work surface to expel any large air bubbles.
• Scatter edible glitter on top (I used a small paintbrush which I tapped gently from a height).
• Leave the macarons to rest for about 15 minutes - 1 hour until they have set and formed a dry shell. 
• Preheat the oven to 170C. 
• Bake the macarons, 1 sheet at a time for about 10 minutes.
• The tops should be crispy and the bottoms dry. 
• Leave to cool on the baking sheet.
• 
  
• To make the filling, put the egg yolks, sugar and cornflour in a small heatproof bowl and whisk until combined. 
• Heat the milk, along with the vanilla pod (or vanilla bean paste) in a small saucepan until it only just starts to boil.
• Remove from the heat and pour over the egg mixture, whisking constantly until smooth. 
• Pour the mixture back into the pan and cook gently over low heat, stirring constantly until the custard comes to a boil and thickens.
• Strain into a clean bowl, add the butter and stir until the butter has melted. 
• Cover with clingfilm and leave to cool before refrigerating. 
• Whip the cream until it holds soft peaks and fold into the chilled custard. 
• 
  
• Take one half of the macaron shells and spread about 1/2 teaspoon raspberry jam onto each one. 
• Fill a piping bag with the vanilla cream filling and pipe it onto the remaining shells. 
• Sandwich together with the jammy macarons and leave to rest for about 30 minutes before serving. 

Pistachio and chocolate macarons

Hello everyone. I'm back from my travels and slowly getting back to baking and blogging. It was an awesome trip and I had an amazing time! I was quite jet lagged on return and it has taken me quite a while to get back into the swing of things which is why things have been quiet on my blog and twitter.  I will post a few pictures from my travels when I get my photos organised but for now it's back to baking!

As it's St Patrick's Day I wanted to make something green and decided to tackle my baking nemesis... macarons. I've never made them before but I did attend a class recently with my AlphaBakes co-host Caroline which you can read about here.  I've always had a fear of making them having read many horror stories and I'm afraid this is not a success story :( 

I used the recipe that we were given in the class (which produced great results).  Basically you need egg whites, sugar and pistachios.  I used fresh eggs as I didn't have time to age the egg whites but added a pinch of cream of tartar and salt to the eggs.  The macaronage looked good and I had high hopes before they went in the oven. I let them sit for 30 minutes and they actually formed a skin. After baking, they looked slightly brown but some of them had "feet" and I thought success!! Then I tried to peel them off the silicone mat and they literally fell to pieces :( I'm not sure if I was meant to grease the mat first and I notice that Caroline had similar problems with her mat. The ones I piped freehand onto a baking sheet turned out ok - they're nowhere near perfect but they are passable.  I suspect my macarons were undercooked but they were getting quite brown or perhaps my oven temperature was wrong. They are quite fiddly little things!

So I decided to try them again but made them greener this time. However, I initially put grape violet colour instead of green as I saw the "G" and assumed it was green!! You can see a few purple streaks but I'm sure you would not have noticed if I didn't tell you.  I also decided to use the other side of the macaron mat to make mini macarons. This time, I could peel them off the mat easily but they didn't have feet on them! 

The plus point was that they tasted really good as you can really taste the pistachio in the macaron shells and it paired well with chocolate. I will definitely attempt these again (probably not for a while) so watch this space! Hope my baking mojo returns :) 

I am entering these to AlphaBakes as the letter for this month is "M" 

and also to We Should Cocoa hosted by Chocolate Teapot as the theme this month is green

 silicone mat 

 egg whites 

 pistachios blitzed with icing sugar - you can't really see the green but it was definitely a light green. 

 slightly overzealous piping! 

 "freestyle" as I ran out of space on the mat 

 result from round 1 (these were from the shells I piped on the baking sheet

 i'm pretty sure those are little feet! 

 

broken shells from my first attempt and some from the second attempt 

 round 2 - greener!

  reverse side of the mat 

 mini macs ready to be filled

 final result 

I made a chocolate ganache for the filling - heat 4 tablespoons of cream and add 100g chopped chocolate and 25g butter and stir until mixed and smooth. Sorry forgot to take a picture of the ganache!