Category Archives: recipes

Hands-on cooking and the occasional comment about recipe-writing

Wild rice, apricot, lemon and almond salad

Sat 12 Apr, 2008 Duncan 8 Comments

I’m not a great salad eater, probably because leafy ones tend to splash and I can’t stand splashy food! (I adore laksa, for instance, but oh how annoyed I get while eating a bowl of the stuff… And a nice bowl of Vietnamese pho just isn’t my idea of a fun night out.) The salad featured in this post is a Duncan original, splash free, and conceived late last year when apricots had come into season. I made it again recently with dried apricots and it was still pretty damn good, if you ask me. Of course, it’s in the grain-salad category, so probably won’t satisfy the hordes of lettuce-loving saladinos and saladitas.

Wild rice is an expensive and simultaneously over- and under-rated ingredient. On the one hand, I don’t see any benefit in those white-rice-plus-a-dash-of-wild-rice mixes which come and go in supermarkets. Eating wild rice straight isn’t necessarily a special enough experience to warrant the price either. It costs about A$35/kg at my Vietnamese supermarket, and much more almost anywhere else. On the other hand, the chewy texture and tea-like fragrance can be used with some success in combination with other ingredients to create something out of the ordinary and delicious.

In this salad I’ve combined wild rice with roasted almonds, oven-dried apricots, preserved lemon, mint and olive oil. It makes a delightful dish of textural contrasts with sour, sweet and herbal all coming through. It’s also rather pretty, with the creamy almonds and the deep orange apricots set against the dark grains.

Note: wild rice is in fact a North American grass seed. There are a few different varieties and it’s best to follow the instructions on the packet or, failing that, wash and then simmer the wild rice gently, covered in four times its weight in water until the grains start to split but aren’t mushy. This is essentially the absorption method for cooking normal rice, but with more liquid. Cooking can take anywhere between 30 and 60 mins.

	Wild rice, apricot, lemon and almond salad
	Source: Duncan Markham
	Ingredients Yield: 3-4 modest serves
›	150 g	wild rice	‹
›	4	apricots – halved and pitted	‹
›	100 g	almonds – blanched and lightly roasted	‹
›	3-4 leaves	fresh common mint/spearmint – chopped	‹
›	3-9 teaspoons	preserved lemon or lime – chopped fairly finely	‹
›		extra virgin olive oil	‹
›		salt and pepper	‹

Place the apricot halves cut side up on a baking tray and bake for 1-2 hours at 60C. The apricots will shrivel and soften a little. How semi-dried you want them is entirely your choice. The cooking process brings out the flavour of the apricot and accentuates both the sweet and sour aspects.
Cook the wild rice. If there is still some liquid in the pot, drain the rice well. Place in a large bowl. Fluff with a fork to prevent clumping.
Slice the apricots into fairly thin strips. Add these to the wild rice. Add the almonds.
Sprinkle with salt and coarsely ground black pepper. Add the mint and some preserved lemon/lime. Pour a good dash of olive oil over the top and combine well.
Taste and then add more preserved lemon/lime and more salt and pepper as you wish. It’s easy to be scared by the lemon/lime, but if you’re feeling cautious it is worth adding more than you at first think sensible.

cooking, food, hl, recipes

Plummy goodness: plum and cardamom cake

Thu 20 Mar, 2008 Duncan 2 Comments

Before the last juicy plums vanish from the markets and fresh produce displays, buy up and bake a cake! This delightfully fragrant cake is dense and moist, strong with the aroma of plum and cardamom and lifted by tangy pieces of plum.

I’ve adapted a recipe from Canadian pastry chef Regan Daley’s wonderful In the Sweet Kitchen (Artisan, 2001). She called hers Plum and Cardamom Sweet Bread, but I feel it’s more cakey. Enjoy this now, perhaps as relief from the disappointment of cheapo Easter eggs and anodyne commercial hot cross buns.

The original recipe used a larger amount of cardamom, but with fresh cardamom it was very strong and possibly off-putting for some people. I recommend starting with the amount shown below.

This cake isn’t at all tricky and can be made quite quickly — it just takes a while in the oven. It freezes well.

	Plum and Cardamom Cake
	Source: adapted from Regan Daley: In the Sweet Kitchen (Artisan, 2001) Yield: 1 long loaf tin — 32 x 11 x 6.5 cm
	Ingredients
›	180 g	unsalted butter	‹
›	200 g	sugar	‹
›	125 g	light brown sugar	‹
›	1 tsp (5 ml)	vanilla essence/extract	‹
›	0.5 tsp (2.5 ml)	finely grated orange zest	‹
›	2	eggs (55-60 g)	‹
›	250 ml	buttermilk	‹
›	350 g	plain flour	‹
›	1 tsp (5 ml)	freshly ground cardamom	‹
›	0.5 tsp (2.5 ml)	salt	‹
›	1 tsp (5 ml)	baking powder	‹
›	0.5 tsp (2.5 ml)	bicarbonate of soda	‹
›	1 Tbsp (20 ml)	plain flour – for coating plums	‹
›	approx 6	medium sized plums (approx 5 cm diameter) – stoned and chopped into 2 cm cubes	‹

Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease the tin and line the base with baking paper.
Cream the butter and sugars at high speed until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs and beat until combined.
Add the cardamom, vanilla and orange zest.
Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.
Add the flour mixture and buttermilk in portions, mixing briefly on low speed between each addition until just combined: 1/3 flour, 1/2 buttermilk, 1/3 flour, 1/2 buttermilk, 1/3 flour.
In a bowl, coat the chopped plums with the extra 20 g flour. Gently stir into the mixture by hand.
Pour the cake batter into the prepared tin. Smooth the top.
Bake for 1h15m-1h45m. Use a wooden skewer to check whether the cake is cooked.
Once cooked, allow to cool in the tin on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Remove from the tin carefully as the cake is quite heavy.

SERVING NOTE: Absolutely delicious warm, great with coffee when cold.

cooking, food, recipes

Slow bread fast: sourdough meets bread machine

Fri 07 Mar, 2008 Duncan 6 Comments

Bread. I like. Warm. Ovenly. Is it true that you get indigestion from eating still-warm bread? I know I do, but I suspect it’s more through overconsumption than mythical powers. Especially when it’s my slow-fermentation loaf. I’ve been using Dan Lepard’s (The Handmade Loaf) slow fermentation, minimal knead method for about two years now and have been a happy chappy for all that time. (I’ll write about the method another time, but if you don’t have the book it is a must-have for enthusiastic crustophiles.) Recently, however, I took the plunge after a 12-year hiatus and started nurturing my own natural leaven (sometimes known as a ‘starter’ or ‘sourdough leaven’). The results have been mindblowingly happy-making. I ate half a loaf in one sitting. Woops.

Although I don’t mind spending eight hours nurturing a slow fermentation bread (it needs brief kneads, then occasional folding in order to achieve good texture and crumb), it does mean that scheduling baking can be difficult. Using a sourdough leaven is even slower. But does it have to be?

I have a fairly fancy (but now five years old) bread machine that allows a reasonable number of adjustments to kneading and proofing (rising) cycles. What, wondered Duncan, would happen if he made a sourdough and maxed out the proofing cycles? Something beautiful.

It was by no means a foregone conclusion that it would be successful, yet at the end of the baking program I had a well risen, slightly pale, fragrant beauty. The top crust had broken open in an unusual way and certainly wouldn’t have won the Miss Loaf 2008 pageant, but the crumb was great. Bread machines aren’t great at giving a good top crust, as the heat just isn’t intense enough, so whilst some crunch and browning flavour is absent, it’s a minor loss for the convenience of creating a relatively low maintenance sourdough.

The loaf took six hours with little attention, which works reasonably for many people coming home from work, say. The bread can be ready by bedtime.

As making a leaven is a separate project, I’m going to assume that you have one already or know how to. If you don’t, I can write about it another time or you can read one of the many good bread books which have appeared in the last two years.

Recipe:

	Simple Sourdough
	Source: adapted from The Handmade Loaf (Dan Lepard, 2004; Mitchell Beazley, London) Yield: 1 small loaf
	Ingredients
›	150 g	leaven	‹
›	375 g	bread flour (or use 35% rye flour, 65% bread flour)	‹
›	235 ml	water at room temperature	‹
›	1.25 tsp	salt	‹
›	1 tsp	malt extract (optional)	‹

I placed the quantity of leaven in the machine’s bowl, poured on the water and then added half of the flour. Using the bread machine’s basic cycle, I let it mix these together to form a sloppy dough — just long enough to incorporate the ingredients. I then poured on the remaining flour and the salt and just let it sit for an hour.

The bread machine has an initial warming cycle which I let run for five minutes, then kneading commenced. There were three proofing cycles with a very brief knead at the end of each of the first two. For a sourdough, the final proofing cycle may well be too short (my machine can do a maximum cycle of 99 minutes) — this was ok for a sourdough made with 100% wheat bread flour, but not enough for a wheat/rye loaf. To solve this I terminated the program after the last proofing and started a new program with 45 mins proofing (total 99+45) and then 40 minutes baking.

Bread machines vary a lot, so adjustments to times and volumes might be necessary. The dough tends to be much stickier and less inclined to form a nice ball than a normal dough, so at the start of the final proofing (ie, at the beginning of the 99 mins) I reached into the bowl and gently pulled the dough into the centre in order to distribute the dough fairly evenly. You do have to accept that it won’t end up being perfectly regular. You may also find that the surface of the dough dries a little, as bread machines aren’t airtight.

The unusual cracking of the top crust is due to the drying of the surface and the lack of strong top heat at the beginning of the baking cycle.

Putting it all in writing seems to make it sound like more a hassle than it was. In essence there are four steps:

1. Partial kneading and resting of ingredients for an hour.
2. Brief monitoring of ingredient incorporation when main kneading begins.
3. Neatening of dough before final proofing.
(4.) Manual extension of proofing if necessary

I hope this serves as inspiration for the home bakers out there. The bread shown above was a rye/wheat mix with some malt added for colour and flavour (and the chance to lick a malty spoon).

cooking, food, recipes

Baba ghanoush

Mon 11 Feb, 2008 Duncan 10 Comments

Eggplant does not play a part in my life. I do not understand eggplant. I hate the smell of it cooking. The texture is dodgy too. ‘Let’s have an eggplant curry, Duncan!’ my friends cry. ‘No! Anything but that!’ pleads your mild-mannered writer.

But there is an exception. I can eat cupfuls of baba ghanoush. That’s right. A slimy mush of eggplant, garlic, lemon and tahini is my idea of heaven. As with many outstandingly tasty dishes (and far too many unequivocally foul ones), baba ganoush is a dip with a million recipes, each someone’s absolute favourite. Mine is adapted from Claudia Roden’s A New Book of Middle Eastern Food (1986, Penguin).

For one large eggplant (or about three slender Lebanese ones), you need one modest clove of garlic, 3/4 tsp salt, the juice of one large lemon, and 60 ml of tahini. None of these amounts are law — vary at will. This amount is sufficient for a romantic night for two of garlic-breathing bliss.

Notes:

Tahini is a pure paste of toasted sesame seeds. It is pale and creamy. There is apparently also a coarse variety which shouldn’t be used here. Tahini is also called tahina, tahineh, tahin and just about any other vowel substitution you care to try.
Baba ghanoush (also baba ghanooj and other variant spellings) differs from the Greek dip melitzanosalata in that the latter is roasted, rather than grilled, and doesn’t have tahini added. It is usually milder and a little wetter than baba ghanoush, but also delicious.

Grill the eggplant under/over high heat until black and wrinkly. You can cut them in half if necessary, but cover the cut side with foil to reduce moisture loss. I don’t recommend just roasting them in the oven, as the smoky flavour doesn’t develop and the dip is then dull.
When the eggplant flesh is mostly soft, remove from the heat and scoop the flesh into a sieve over a bowl. The flesh is often stringy, especially if slightly undercooked. It doesn’t matter (except aesthetically).

Is it a monster from the deep?

Squeeze the eggplant flesh to release some of the juice. I don’t think this makes much difference to the final flavour with our contemporary, fairly unbitter eggplants, but less moisture gives a nicer texture in my opinion.
Put the eggplant in a medium bowl. Mash (as coarsely/finely as you wish).
Crush the garlic with the salt.
Add garlic, salt and lemon juice to the eggplant and mix well.
Add the tahini and mix well.
Taste and adjust as necessary. If in doubt, allow to sit for a while before tasting again.

If you prefer, you can puree the whole mixture, giving a wonderfully creamy paste.
Serve with fresh ~~Duncan’s~~ sourdough or a nice toasted bread or flatbread.
Store baba ghanoush in the refrigerator for up to five days. Do not leave it to stand at room temperature and then rechill it multiple times!

Does my breath look bad in this?

cooking, food, hl, macarons, recipes

La Macaronicité 4: fillings, flavours, frippery

Thu 20 Dec, 2007 Duncan 40 Comments

Dear meringue shell crazy people,

It’s time for fillings, flavours and frippery!

This article will be shorter than the others. I feel that the filling is where the cook has the opportunity to show their initiative and creativity and I want to communicate general principles rather than fine detail.

Fillings

There are probably five main types of filling:

jam (probably the original filling) — confiture
ganache
butter cream — crème au beurre
thickened creams
caramel

I won’t say anything about jam, but will comment on the other types below.

Please remember that this material is copyright. If you want to use any part of it (beyond a very short quote), please contact me for permission.

Ganache

A cream, chocolate and butter mixture, ganache can provide a strongly flavoured counter to the sweetness of the macaron shell. It can also act as a milder carrier for other flavours. White chocolate ganache is often combined with acid fruits such as berries — a nifty way of getting popular fruit flavours while countering the tang of the fruit, but can sometimes end up too sweet and cloying.

Butter cream

Simplest of all is a mock cream, made by whipping butter and adding icing sugar. Almond meal is frequently added as it improves stability and absorbs some moisture. Mock cream can sometimes be a little gritty.

More flexible than a ganache, a butter cream is a fairly neutral canvas for flavouring and colouring as you please. A basic rich butter cream (egg yolks, sugar syrup, butter) is simple but easily too rich. When cold it can be too firm for immediate eating, and when at warm room temperature it can begin to feel greasy when eating the macaron.

Another option is a lighter butter cream, where Italian meringue (yet more sugar syrup!) is added to the basic butter cream. This is a popular option amongst some bakers.

And finally, another simple butter cream: with whole eggs and sugar heated in a bain marie, beaten until thick and then with butter added. Also popular and less inclined to seem greasy.

All butter creams tend to be disappointing in a macaron which is served cold. The textures don’t match and the flavours are muted.

macarons pink and yellow
Pink and yellow shells, filled with rose and apricot butter creams.

Thickened cream preparations

Many of the classic French creams are given some structural reinforcement by adding some gelatine. Most of these (chiboust, bavaroise, etc) are suitable if prepared to a consistency which can be happily piped when cool. These thickened creams, and also standard crème pâtissière, are often used in larger macarons and macaron cakes, probably because they hold their shape better at a range of temperatures and under different loads.

Caramel

And this is where this article series sort of started! The response to my salted caramel macarons provided the impetus for a comprehensive look at macarons. I make a simple sugar-cream-butter caramel and add salt. It’s inspired by the salted butter caramel popular in the north of France (Brittany and Normandy), but rather than using salted butter, I like the sensation and variation in flavour experience created by crystals of salt.

Other caramels are fine too, of course, though the sweetness can be overdone. Flavoured caramels are probably more interesting.

macarons with caramel
Uncoloured macarons filled with salted caramel (a little too fresh and runny!).

Salted caramel

50 g sugar
23 g cream
35 g butter, cold, in cubes

Place one third of the sugar in a small saucepan and heat very gently. After some time it will suddenly start to melt and go brown.
As soon as the sugar is liquid, add another third of the dry sugar and melt, stirring gently.
Repeat with the remaining sugar.
When the liquid sugar has reached a rich caramel colour (perhaps very soon after melting),add the cream in a thin stream. The caramel will bubble vigorously, so be careful.
Stir and measure the temperature promptly. When the caramel reaches 108-110 C (this can happen very quickly!), remove from the heat and immediately add the butter.
Stir well (or use a handmixer) until the caramel is smooth and has cooled somewhat.
Refrigerate the caramel. It will firm up after an hour or two.

There are many other things you could make to fill macarons, but I’ll leave that to your imagination!

Colours and flavours

Beyond the basic creams and other fillings, it pays to think about how you can enhance the flavour sensation of these pâtisserie divas. Coarse nut pieces and other textural elements can be fun, as can an interplay between the flavour of the shell and the flavour of the cream inside. Most pâtissiers don’t play with the shells’ flavour because it makes it harder to deploy the batter for a range of macarons. I love flavouring my shells with citrus zest and then using a filling with a complementary flavour. Some of the better producers spray the inside of the shell with an aroma (such as a flower water or flavoured syrup) and then use a differently flavoured cream.

Liquid colourings are the most obvious choice for home cooks, but professional powder colourings are often used and I’ve read of some bakers using powdered fruit which is a fun idea. Whatever the colour, I feel the shell should entice. Too often when trying to not overdo it, my shells have been the faintest pastel colour, barely here or there. You need to be bolder! On the other hand, some disappointing producers go for maxi-colour, beyond bold and into lurid. If the colour evokes, say, the fruit in the filling, that’s great; if it looks like an accident with rotten raspberries or an ageing banana, well, no.

trio of flavours
Chocolate shell with chocolate-cinnamon ganache. Lemon shell with ganache. Chocolate shell with lemon-basil cream.

Part of the allure of these divas is that they’re a visual treat. They can be beautiful in their naked simplicity, or they can be a painter’s canvas.

Think about what you want to achieve. Experiment. Enjoy!

You can also read La Macaronicité 1: an introduction to the macaron.
La Macaronicité 2: basic technique and simple macaron recipe.
La Macaronicité 3: the more reliable macaron recipe and a few tips.
La Macaronicité 5: Macawrongs and macarights, macarons day and night.

– DM

cooking, food, hl, macarons, recipes

La Macaronicité 3: the more reliable macaron recipe and a few tips

Fri 14 Dec, 2007 Duncan 145 Comments

coloured macarons

Macaroniers, Macaronistes et Macaroneurs,

So you want to make better macarons? Welcome to the third instalment of La Macaronicité at Syrup & Tang! If you missed the introduction, click here to read it. And if you want to learn about basic technique, ingredients and method, visit the second article.

La Macaronicité: Advanced technique and knowledge

Main sections:

Ingredients
Fundamentals
Recipe B — macarons au sucre cuit
Background to my recipe

Please remember that this material is copyright. If you want to use any part of it (beyond a very short quote), please contact me for permission.

There’s a lot of information here and it’s possible that not everything applies to your kitchen or experience. I don’t know everything about them (there’s a limit to how many kilos of almond meal a poor writer can buy!). I welcome feedback about other solutions/explanations/ideas, but please don’t submit comments listing other recipes unless it contributes to a better understanding of the actual process and problems. You’re welcome to contact me directly if you prefer and I’ll incorporate helpful info into the article where appropriate.

Ingredients

To summarise the more detailed ingredient information from the previous article, the macaron batter consists of only four ingredients:

almond meal (ground almond) – amandes en poudre
pure icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar, no starch added) – sucre glace
egg whites, preferably old – blancs d’œufs
sugar – sucre

On occasion you might also see mention of cream of tartar or salt, both of which strengthen egg white foam.

The batter may be coloured (very common) and flavoured (less common, though not too difficult).

There are three types of recipe:

macarons au blanc monté (1) – a simple eggwhite foam is combined with the dry ingredients; preferred in Pierre Hermé’s books

macarons au blanc monté (2) – a simple French meringue is combined with the dry ingredients; in most other books, including Alain Ducasse

macarons au sucre cuit – an Italian meringue is combined with the dry ingredients; preferred in most professional books

I’ll explain the third recipe type (Italian meringue) here.

The important differences in this style of macaron recipe are as follows:

Meringue: This recipe uses a so-called Italian meringue, made with a hot sugar syrup which is beaten into the whipped egg white.

meringue 'bec d'oiseau'
An Italian meringue gives this beautiful peak, called a ‘bec d’oiseau’ (bird’s beak) in French.

Mixing: As with the simpler recipe, at first the ingredients won’t mix together well. The Italian meringue is slower to pick up the dry ingredients and needs a bit more mixing to achieve a smooth batter. If you find you have lumps of powder in the batter, don’t be scared to smear the batter against the side of the bowl with the spatula. The final batter looks fluffier (some visible bubbles) than for the simple recipe. If the batter sits for any length of time the aeration becomes more apparent. That’s fine. This batter seems a little more tolerant of overmixing. This mixture dries out much more quickly than the simple one, but also remains usable for longer. Just cover the bowl with plastic film until you need it (e.g., if you’re baking multiple batches).

Crusting: I experimented with leaving some macarons to crust for an hour. The surface was actually almost hard after this time! Popped them in the oven and they rose happily, though some air bubbles made the surface irregular. The most striking difference between crusted and uncrusted macarons is that the former have a clearly defined line between the shell and the foot. On the downside, the shell was thicker than desirable. [UPDATE: after more testing, I now recommend permitting the shells to sit for half an hour or so. It helps reduce some problems if your oven has strong heat below the baking tray.]

Sugar syrup: The syrup is made by simmering off moisture until you achieve a certain sugar concentration, which is judged by its temperature. If only making a small quantity of syrup (e.g. for the recipe example quantity below), it’s best to use a small narrow saucepan or even a Turkish coffee pot.

Hot sugar syrup can cause bad burns, so be careful of splashing and don’t feel tempted to stick your finger in it! You need a digital thermometer or sugar thermometer to check the temperature. (Actually, you can check it using the old-fashioned drop test into cold water, but for that I suggest you check out one of your cookbooks — look up ‘firm ball’ stage.) Syrups harden quickly as they cool, so you need to have your equipment and ingredients ready to go.

Oven: Being slightly less touchy, this recipe doesn’t require changing temperatures and leaving the oven door ajar. You should be able to cook the shells at one temperature with the door closed. In general, you’ll lose fewer shells to burning or sticking if you use your first attempt to work out the best temperature for your oven — just cook a few macarons at a time at different temps (or trust me, LOL).

In testing, I found that at 150C the shells came off the paper beautifully, had good feet, but had air pockets. At 160C air pockets were absent, but the bottoms were just a bit sticky. At 170C the feet were more modest (still good) but the bottoms were sometimes too sticky. Permitting the shells to crust before baking gave a good rise (feet) and fairly dry bottoms, but a duller shell.

mixed or overmixed
macarons tops
macarons bottoms
This is what happens with batter at different levels of mixing when cooked at 150C.

air pockets in macarons
Experiment with temperatures: air pockets at low temperature.

Be brave and face the batter!

Recipe B
macarons au sucre cuit; (Italian meringue)

This method is rarely found on the English-speaking internet and is only mentioned in a small number of professional cookbooks. It is fairly reliable, though still requires some practice.

Decide how many eggs you want to sacrifice. Crack and separate the eggs, remembering to keep the whites and all vessels and implements scrupulously free of fat or egg yolk. You don’t need to weigh the egg whites at this point. One egg white will yield about fourteen 3-4 cm macaron shells.

It isn’t necessary to age the eggs (though probably doesn’t hurt).

Formula and method

When you’re ready to start cooking, weigh the egg whites and then scale the recipe appropriately. The formula is below.

‘eggwhite’ refers to the weight of the egg whites in grams. The righthand column provides an example calculation.

Ingredient	Amount	Example	(with eggwhite=50 gm)
Almond meal	1.35 x eggwhite	1.35 x 50 =	67 gm
Icing sugar	1.35 x eggwhite	1.35 x 50 =	67 gm

Sugar	1.35 x eggwhite	1.35 x 50 =	67 gm
Water	0.33 x eggwhite	0.33 x 50 =	16 gm

Egg white			50 gm

A batter with 50 gm egg white should yield one baking tray 30 cm x 40 cm or approximately 25 shells.

Preheat your oven:
Conventional oven: centre rack, 160C. Convection oven: 140C

Stack two or three heavy baking trays. Line the top tray with non-stick baking paper. If you’re well organised, mark the paper with 2 or 3 cm circles, spaced about 4 cm apart (the piped batter will spread about 1 cm).
Place the sugar and water in a small saucepan and leave to stand.
Divide the total egg white into two equal amounts, placing one half in a small bowl or glass and the other half in the bowl which you will use for making the meringue. It is preferable to weigh the amounts, not do it by volume or eye.
Process the almond meal and icing sugar at high speed to achieve a fine powder. Sift (or whisk the powder by hand) to break up any lumps of powder and place in a large bowl.
Place the saucepan for the syrup over low heat and bring to a simmer. Stir once or twice to help dissolve the sugar, but once it’s simmering you shouldn’t stir it again. As the syrup boils it will splash the sides of the pan and you should use a wet basting brush to dissolve the dried sugar so that it runs back into the syrup. Start to measure the syrup temperature after it has been simmering for a minute or two.
If you are using an electric hand beater rather than a kitchen machine, beat the egg white until it makes soft peaks. If you are using a kitchen machine you can start the machine when the syrup is a few degrees below the final temperature (see below).
The final temperature you want the syrup to reach is 118C (no drama if you overshoot slightly). Beat the egg whites to firm peaks just before the final temperature is attained.
Set the beater/machine to slow speed and slowly pour the hot syrup into the bowl of beaten egg whites in a thin stream. The syrup may splash a little. If you are too slow to do this, the syrup might harden in the saucepan… there is always some wastage.
As soon as all the syrup is in the egg whites, increase the beating speed to maximum and beat for several minutes until the meringue is just warm to the touch. If there was lots of splashing when you poured the syrup on, you can stop beating briefly at the start to scrape down the sides a bit. The final product should be a stiff, white, compact meringue with a lovely satiny consistency.
Pour the unused amount of egg white (see beginning of this recipe) onto the dry ingredients. Then scoop the meringue on top of that. Mix the ingredients with a spatula using a circular motion around the bowl and under the batter. The mixing process for this recipe takes a little longer than for the simpler recipe in the previous article. You don’t need to be gentle, but the goal is to incorporate the dry ingredients quickly to avoid overmixing. It’s better to undermix than overmix. You can add colourings or flavourings during this mixing.

meringue bowl of ingredients macaron batter almost ready

The final batter should be the colour of pale ivory (if you haven’t coloured it) and smooth and thick but flowing (typically referred to as being ‘like magma’, but as few of us have visited an active volcano or been to the centre of the Earth…). A ribbon of batter dropped from a spoon onto the top of the remaining batter should take about 30 seconds to disappear.
Dab a little batter under each corner of the baking paper on the tray to anchor it (otherwise it’ll slip).
Spoon the batter into a piping bag/gun with a 8-10 mm nozzle and pipe evenly onto the baking paper. Mild peaks should settle back into the batter eventually. If they don’t disappear, tap the tray repeatedly on a table until the peaks have largely disappeared. Usually the batter will spread a little and any bumps will disappear. Sometimes the batter is quite runny and will rapidly flatten out. (It might be overmixed.) This consistency will often yield irregular shells. If the batter never stops spreading then you should probably scrape it all back into a bowl, gently add some more almond meal and try again.
If you want, you can leave the piped batter to dry for anywhere between 20 mins and two hours.
Place the tray in the oven. If you’re using a conventional oven, cook as normal (ie, with the door closed) for the entire time. For a convection oven, you will need to experiment a little, possibly leaving the door ajar for part of the time.
At the 5 minute mark the shells should have lifted and developed ‘feet’. At the 6-7 minute mark they should be starting to colour just slightly. Rotate the baking sheet if the colouring is uneven. The outermost shells often have to be sacrificed in order for the centre ones to be cooked, but the majority should be no more than the palest cream colour. They are probably ready if a shell moves only reluctantly on its foot when you lightly nudge it with a finger.
Remove from the oven and leave on the tray for a minute or two. Gently try to lift one of the outermost shells. A slight twisting motion or a peeling motion can help. If the shells stick badly, but are firm, try spraying or brushing a little water under the baking paper. This will moisten the paper and soften any stuck bits after 1-2 minutes. Don’t use too much water or the shells may start to dissolve around the edges. Remove each shell by gently peeling away the baking paper or with the aid of a thin palette or paring knife. Another solution to the sticking problem can be to place the paper or Silpat (with stuck macarons) in the freezer for a while.
Once removed from the sheet, leave the shells to cool on a wire rack, face up.

unhappy macaron
Very sticky macarons leave their bellies behind 🙁 Don’t try to peel the macarons off. Just put the paper with stuck macarons on a rack for a few hours and then peel carefully.

If you haven’t already made a filling, do so now.
The plain shells can be frozen for a few weeks quite well. Complete macarons store well in the fridge for two to three days. After that they become softer. Eat macarons at room temperature.

Background to my recipe

There’s only really one formula for the Italian meringue style of macaron recipe, as illustrated here. Alain Ducasse (in his Grand Livre de Cuisine: Alain Ducasse’s Desserts and Pastries) is approximately 1.4:1.4:1.0:1.4 (almond:icing sugar:egg white:sugar). My favourite book, by Christophe Felder (Les Macarons de Christophe), uses a ratio of 1.33:1.33:1.0:1.33. I’ve used both successfully, but settled for a compromise of 1.35:1.0. I don’t know how much impact these minor variations will have in your kitchen.

If you have any doubt about the preferability of the Italian meringue approach, read what talented Joycelyn at the beautiful Kuidaore site has to say, or see what Kitchen Wench has written about her macaron adventures.

For troubleshooting and additional info on technique, remember to read the previous article.

coloured macarons raw coloured macarons cooked

Pause for breath

I’ll leave everyone who is so inclined to play with their delicious divas over the weekend. Next week I’ll write about fillings and flavours, amongst other things.

My piping gun has cracked, my piping bag is torn, and I have fourteen neglected egg yolks in the fridge, clamouring for use!

macaron shell with ganache
Naked shell with chocolate ginger ganache. My midnight snack.

You can read La Macaronicité 1: an introduction to the macaron.
La Macaronicité 2: basic technique and simple macaron recipe.
La Macaronicité 4: fillings, flavours, frippery.
La Macaronicité 5: Macawrongs and macarights, macarons day and night.

– DM

cooking, food, hl, macarons, recipes

La Macaronicité 2: basic technique and simple macaron recipe

Mon 10 Dec, 2007 Duncan 111 Comments

making art with the reject macarons

Mesdames et messieurs, enfants et français charmants,

So you want to make macarons? Welcome to the second instalment of La Macaronicité at Syrup & Tang! If you missed the introduction, click here to read it.