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Pokéball Macarons filled with Razz Berry Buttercream :)
A bit of homage to Pokémon Go ;) |
"If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are. Today's young people want to know everything about everyone. They think talking about a problem will solve it. I come from a quieter generation. We understand the value of forgetting, the lure of reinvention.
Lately, though, I find myself thinking about the war and my past, about the people I lost.
Lost.
It makes it sound as if I misplaced my loved ones; perhaps I left them where they don't belong and then turned away, too confused to retrace my steps. [...]
"Mom?"
I hear my son on the creaking wooden steps, footsteps that match my heartbeats. Has he called out to me before? [...]
I take his arm and for a glorious moment, as we step out onto the bustling sidewalk, arm in arm, I feel like a girl again. Traffic rushes past us, honking and squealing; boys skateboard up the sidewalk, dodging in and out amid the throng of tourists and locals out on this brilliant afternoon. The air is full of chestnut blossoms and smells of baking bread, cinnamon, diesel fuel, car exhaust, and baked stone - smells that will forever remind me of Paris.
To my right, I see one of my mother's favorite pâtisseries, and suddenly I remember Maman handing me a butterfly macaron.
"Mom?"
I smile at him. "Come," I say imperiously, leading him into the small shop. There is a long line and I take my place at the end of it.
"I thought you didn't like cookies."
I ignore him and stare at the glass case full of beautifully colored macarons and pain au chocolat. When it is my turn I buy two macarons - one coconut, one raspberry. I reach into the bag and get the coconut macaron, handing it to Julien.
We are outside again, walking, when he takes a bite and stops dead. "Wow," he says after a minute. Then, "Wow," again.
I smile. Everyone remembers their first taste of Paris. This will be his."
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| This is probably the closest I'll ever get to a taste of Paris~ |
My first taste of France was a beautiful sentence. From Lyon, to be more exact. I popped it into my mouth and rolled it on my tongue like a fruity gumdrop, letting the plump licorice scrawls break upon the palate in a burst of words and letters, whimsical and dusty and sweet. I never learned the moderation of reading in parts, so I inhaled one sentence after another, and by the time I finished Saint-Exupéry's feast I had polished Le Petit Prince in its entirety. "C'est" contained depth, like a sip of tannic blackberry wine; "le temps"...was an acquired taste. Like old silent films, the puff of loose tea leaves in a forgotten tin or the ghosts of long-eaten birthday cake. Heady yet smooth with hints of cream, with a bit of a foreboding finish; "que tu as perdu" had overtones of smoke, like burning pinewood fire, and volatile hints of muscatel and honey that could easily be missed.
The rest of that phrase, "...pour ta rose qui fait ta rose si importante", I don't remember much of. Except that it was like a slice of still-warm cake for the soul. I washed it all down with another novel. Some Boris Vian, Raymond Queneau or Émile Zola. Or was it Guy de Maupassant?
I have nibbled on many morsels of France throughout the years: Notre-Dame de Paris, Carla Bruni, Claude Debussy, croissants, tartes tatin, Brie... But never the pleasure of stepping through Parisian quartiers or the quintessential French cookie: the macaron. The latter being a delight for those who come after the ding of the oven; a scourge for the amateur home bakers who fumble before it.
Mastering the art of macaronage is a tedious and fickle thing. For every evil beautiful and capricious delicate beast of a French cookie that I successfully took out of my fournée, I had the double amount of failures. Some had hollowed innards. Others, cracked domes like the crater of a volcano. All, however, bubbled up a nice hemline of feet (whooo). Of the 30 pairs of 1.5" macaron shells one batch of batter provided, I managed to salvage 15 perfect ones - which is, in my book, a bittersweet and heartening success compared to my first macaronage attempt: a couple of years ago, I had only managed to pop out colorful disks of meringue crisps.
I have only very recently mustered up the courage to try a macaron recipe again. A few months ago, an old friend suggested that we teamed up to challenge the temperamental pastry; and so we were 4 in his kitchen, each deployed to our respective tasks: one took care of carefully weighing the wares, another sifted and sifted and sifted (and sifted - let's add a last one for good measure), another monitored the sugar syrup and I babysat the progression of the meringue. When came the time to fold the meringue into the almond paste, we all flocked to the mixing bowl (Un pour tous, tous pour un!) Piped shells were then inspected for their drying progression by the minute as testing trays after testing trays were popped in and out to find out the right baking time and temperature for this one oven. It was probably the first time that the industrially mass-produced fella felt so unique.
The first macaron shells were either feetless or mounted arduously on their bubbles. However, the recipe was wisely doubled, and once the magic temp:time formula was found, our fruit of labor was glorious and remained quite plentiful.
I am now sharing this recipe, taken from ChefSteps and modified to include my own notes from trying to reproduce the experiment in my kitchen. Of course, I couldn't resist the temptation of adding a playful alteration to the dignified cookies: Pokéballs and Razz Berry buttercream! Considering that Pokémon Go swept over the world in barely a little more than a week, this felt only appropriate.
This "razz berry"/raspberry is one of my all-time favorite buttercream flavors. The flavor is brightened up by a hefty dose of lemon zest and has a gorgeous raspberry aroma from fresh berries boiled down to a concentrated syrup. This isn't a crusting buttercream and won't be firm enough to pipe intricate cake decorations, but it can probably stand some cupcake swirls. I tend to prefer buttercream fillings VS piping ones as a lot less icing sugar is needed for the former, which really allows the fruity profile to show.
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| Look at the feet! I'm a proud Pokémon trainer ;P |
This recipe is made with the Italian meringue method, which I found surprisingly easier to work with than the French method. It produces a meringue that seems more stable and a batter whose final molten lava consistency isn't as difficult to reach. Making Italian meringue VS French meringue requires an additional dirtied saucepan and a candy thermometer for the sugar syrup, but the extra step is worth it in the long run. Trust me.
Once you have a decent recipe, there are a few other factors that I found to be crucial for making macarons, and it all boils down to the actual method of preparation. It's the kind of magic touch that I imagine only experience can teach. This being said, here are a few tips that I relied on to guide me through the process (for the kitchen is dark and full of errors):
- Exact proportions of the dry:wet ingredients: this is one of the few recipes where I firmly believe that you have to weigh everything. For macarons, units in grams take the cake - Do not use volume/metric measurements.
- Meringue stiffness pre-folding: If you're wondering (like I was) what the difference is precisely between soft, medium and stiff peaks, The Kitchn has a great visual guide (here). What you're looking for here are stiff peaks that can hold up by themselves and point straight without curling down. Gravity's got nothing on these babies. My meringue peaks were able to hold their peaks even after lightly banging the mixing bowl a few times on the table (don't go full Hulk though).
- Macaronage and piping consistency: As I scoured the web looking for fellow web bakers' guidance, I found two bloggers that I now consider as the goddesses of macaronage - Stella Parks from Brave Tart and Mardi from Eat.Live.Travel.Write. Stella uses a French method for her macarons, the main difference here simply being the meringue making, but her guidelines and instructions are very helpful. She also debunks a couple of macaron myths that I am guilty of still believing (and applying in the kitchen ... because macarons turn me into a meek daredevil). Her posts are very interesting reads (here and here). Mardi has especially helpful video tutorials which show how to fold (macaronage) and what the final consistency should look like. A lot of bloggers talk about molten lava as a point of reference, but I realized that I had no idea what that meant when I tried to visualize it. I highly recommend watching Mardi's videos (here) if you're not familiar with macaron baking.
- Drying the macaron shells: I had not given much importance to this step in my previous attempts, but both under-drying and over-drying can lead to sad results. Basically, what you're looking for is a matte, not shiny shell surface, and the batter should slightly pull out when you touch it, but without sticking to your finger.
- Pesky bubbles: Bang your tray hard against the counter a couple of times to release any air bubbles. It's a tiny detail that can make the difference between a smooth shell or a lopsided and cracked one.
- Oven baking temperature/time: 1) Be patient, and go through the pain of making smaller test batches! Every oven heats differently, and you'll have to find the sweet spot for your macarons. A baking temperature that is too high will cause the shells to brown, swell up too fast and crack. Their insides might also not have had the time to set properly and crash upon themselves, causing the dreaded "hollow macaron". Conversely, a baking temperature that is too low can cause soft, undercooked shells and underdeveloped small feet. 2) Do not double-stack the trays on one another in the oven (personal experience ._.). I had a whole army of cracked volcano crater-shaped shells, baked to a crisp, on my bottom rack.
- Random troubleshooting: Another blogger at Not So Humble Pie has compiled this really helpful list of macaron troubleshooting (here): I read it beforehand to prepare myself against possible mistakes.
Ouff. Now, onwards to the recipe.
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| Full macaron roster. |
Pokéball Macarons & Razz Berry Buttercream
INGREDIENTS:
Pokéball Macaron Shells:
Servings: 60 single 1.5" macaron shells
Tant-pour-tant:
150g powdered icing sugar
150g finely ground almonds
Cookie base:
300g tant-pour-tant
105g fresh egg whites, at room temperature, aged overnight (ideally) and divided: 50g in the almond paste & 55g for the meringue (do not use boxed egg whites)
50 ml water
160g white granulated sugar
2 teaspoons red food gel coloring (if not using, increase the egg whites in the almond paste to 55g)
Razz Berry Buttercream (Raspberry buttercream): (For 30 pairs of 1.5" macarons)
300g fresh or frozen raspberries, boiled down to at least 1/4 cup
2 1/2 cups powdered icing sugar
1/2 cup / 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
10g freshly grated lemon zest (from 2 large lemons)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Pokéball decorating: (For 15 pairs of pokéball 1.5" macarons - double the recipe if you use the entire macaron recipe above)
Wilton black icing gel
1/2 cup white chocolate chips + an extra handful on the side
PREPARATION:
Tant-pour-tant:
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Grinding those ground almonds with icing sugar
in my trusty little coffee grinder |
1. Ground almonds: I recommend buying pre-ground almonds because it's the finest product easily accessible. Grinding whole or sliced almonds is a pain. Even in the packaged pre-ground almonds, you will find a few coarse grains and the product should be double-sifted before being weighed again.
I grind over the bought ground version to make sure that no odd granules remain. If you decide not to grind the pre-ground product, it's perfectly fine and your macarons will still turn out delicious - they will just look a little grainy (no sarcasm here; the speckles are tiny through the batter, I promise it won't look like chickenpox).
3 tricks to grind the pre-ground almonds - you can use a food processor, but I found that my little coffee and spice grinder did a better job:
- First, do not grind almonds alone - they seep out oil and will turn into a paste.
- Second, I found that freezing the work bowl helps to keep the fine almond grains from clumping together - It's a broken-down process similar to ChefSteps' suggestion of cryomilling/cryogenic grinding, which continuously cools the grinding jar with liquid nitrogen.
- And third, mix the icing sugar and the ground almonds together before grinding. This gave me by far the best results! It creates the softest powder and reminds me a lot of the white sand beaches in Varadero.
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| Combined ground almonds and icing sugar, ground together: it's sooo soft. |
2. Sift, sift and sift!: Once your ground almonds have been re-ground, whether you combined them with icing sugar or not, sift them again. They should be sifted at least twice, and once with the powdered sugar to break any lumps it might have.
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| Soft and fine tant-pour-tant |
3. Combining: If you did not add the powdered icing sugar yet, do it now. Combine well. Sift your second time if you did not yet. That's your tant-pour-tant: equal parts of ground almonds and icing sugar.
Cookie base:
4. Almond paste: In a large bowl, combine 50g egg whites with the tant-pour-tant and mix well. It will progressively get stickier and harder to mix, but you want to obtain a homogeneous paste. Set aside.
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| Almond Cookie Base :) |
Italian meringue:
5. Whipping the egg whites: In the bowl of your stand-mixer, add the remaining 55g of egg whites. Before attaching it to the mixer, use a standalone whisk or the wire whip attachment to beat by hand until the mixture becomes slightly foamy. 55g is a small quantity and if you don't do this step beforehand, the stand-mixer won't be able to reach completely to the bottom of the bowl, causing your whipped egg whites to not reach their full volume and a small amount a liquid remaining at the bottom.
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Foamy egg whites after a few vigorous beats by hand
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Once you have beaten in enough bubbles by hand, place the bowl on your stand-mixer and whip at medium speed (6) for 4 minutes. Then, increase speed to 8-9 until you get soft peaks. Turn the speed down to low and leave running until you're ready to pour in the sugar syrup - because of the fragile nature of whipped egg whites, if you simply let them sit idle they might lose volume or weep moisture.
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| Soft meringue peaks after sugar syrup was added. |
6. Sugar syrup: As the egg whites whip up to soft peaks, prepare the sugar syrup. In a small saucepan, place the white granulated sugar and pour water over it, making sure that it is evenly moistened. It will initially look like wet sand before dissolving into a slush-consistency. Under no circumstances should you stir the mixture! Agitation can cause the sugar crystals to bind and crystallize.
Cook over medium heat until the syrup reaches 118C/244F. Watch your candy thermometer like a hawk! The process will seem slow at the beginning, but as water evaporates heat will accumulate very fast in the syrup. Be careful: if you heat it too much, the syrup will caramelize at 170C/340F.
A tip: if you notice syrup splatters on the sides of the pan, use a wet silicone brush to wash them down back into the pot. Those splatters could crystallize and start a re-crystallization chain in your syrup.
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| Italian Meringue: Pouring the sugar syrup in! |
7. Meringue: As soon as your sugar syrup reaches the ideal temperature (118C/244F), immediately pour it into the soft peaks egg whites. Turn the stand-mixer to medium-high speed (6-8) and drizzle the sugar syrup gradually down the sides of the mixing bowl in a thin, steady stream.
Continue whipping until the meringue reaches stiff peaks and becomes shiny and smooth, or until its temperature becomes lukewarm (50-55C/122-131F). If using, add your food gel coloring here. Continue beating just enough for the color to be uniformly incorporated.
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Stiff Italian meringue peaks! Notice how the tip points upwards
without curling down. |
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| Stiff Italian meringue - even the tiniest ribbon can hold itself up. |
Macaronage:
8. Folding: Using a rubber spatula, incorporate your meringue into the almond paste in thirds. For the first third of the meringue, start by folding gently, just until the dry ingredients have been properly incorporated into the meringue. Then, you can work a bit more briskly and aggressively: scoop all the way under the batter, sliding your spatula against the batter of the bowl, bringing portions of the bottom batter in a folding motion to the top, and press it down in the middle. Continue for about 10 folds. Add the second third of the meringue and, using the same movements, fold it in more gently. Repeat for the last third of the meringue.
Once everything has been incorporated, check for the consistency. If the batter falls down your spatula in clumps, it is still too thick: keep folding, working more briskly, for an extra 5 folds. Check the progression of the consistency as you go. The batter should be able to ribbon down your spatula in a lazy fashion and reincorporate into itself within 20-30 seconds.
Your goal here isn't to preserve as many air bubbles as possible, as you would for a chiffon cake or a mousse. You want to deflate the meringue just enough to reach the right balance of macaron batter consistency.
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| My final macaron batter consistency. |
Piping:
9. Line a couple of cookie sheet pans with parchment paper, placing 1.5" macaron templates underneath if you're using them (I'll put a link to my piping template at the very end of the recipe). Transfer your macaron batter to a piping bag. I pipe my macarons from the side, holding my piping bag at a 45 degrees angle against the tray, and pulling off the tip of the bag swiftly in a diagonal and upward motion to cut the batter trail. Every baker has their piping strategies, so experiment to find what works best for you.
Once you're done piping a tray, slam it hard against the counter to dislodge any bubbles. Pop the bigger, stubborn ones with a knife.
Tip: Don't forget to pipe out smaller trays for testing batches.
10. Drying: Allow your macaron shells to sit at room temperature until the surface is matte, tacky to the touch and pulls out slightly/dents when you lightly touch it, without fully sticking to your finger. The sitting time can vary from 20 minutes to up to 1 hour, depending the room's humidex factor.
When you notice the surfaces starting to mattify, preheat your oven to 330F/166C (suggested ChefSteps temperature).
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I've never been good at circles...
the compass drawing tool was a lifesaver in highschool. Hah.
Notice the matte surfaces :) |
Baking:
11. ChefSteps suggested a temperature of 330F/166C for my regular oven (VS convection oven) for a baking time of 13 minutes. However, I found out that my ideal baking temperature was 320F/160C for 9-10 minutes.
Adjust your baking temperature and time according to your test batches.
12. Allow your macaron shells to cool completely before removing them from the parchment (at least 15 minutes). Set them aside as you prepare the buttercream.
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Probably my favorite and most exhilarating relieving part of the macaron making process: watch the feet bubble up! It's like magic. |
Razz Berry Buttercream:
1. Raspberry syrup: In a saucepan, cook the raspberries on medium heat. Stir occasionally to prevent them from burning and help them break down. Once you have obtained a purée, pour the mixture over a metal sieve and press it down with a spoon to extract as much crushed raspberries as possible.
Return the raspberry purée to the saucepan. It will be very liquidy, almost like juice. Increase the heat to high and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly once the initial volume halves. You want to reduce the syrup to at least 1/4 cup - it should take about 10-12 minutes. Set aside to cool.
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| Thickened and reduced raspberry syrup |
2. Buttercream: Hook up the paddle attachment to your stand-mixer and cream the butter on high speed for 2-3 minutes until light and fluffy. Decrease to low speed and add the powdered sugar, 1/2 cup at the time, waiting until the first portion has been well incorporated before adding the next one. Scrape the sides of your bowl often. Once all the icing sugar has been added, bring the speed to high again and keep beating until your buttercream pales and becomes fluffy. It will look quite stiff.
3. Raspberry buttercream: On medium-high speed, add the cooled raspberry syrup, lemon juice and lemon zest. Beat until everything has been well-blended.
Test for consistency. I find this already softer than most buttercreams and perfect for filling as it is, but if you find it too stiff, add a bit of heavy cream or milk, one tablespoon at the time. Conversely, if you want a stiffer buttercream, add more powdered icing sugar.
Transfer your buttercream to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until needed.
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Look at that color! And the lemon zest :3
... I can't wait to lick this paddle clean. |
Pokéball decorating:
1. In a double-boiler or a makeshift bain-marie, melt the white chocolate chips, sparing a handful on the side to make the pokéball center buttons.
2. Wait until the macaron shells have completely cooled. To make the white portion of the pokéball, dip half of the shells in the melted white chocolate, halfway through its circle area. Place them on a sheet of parchment paper until the white chocolate sets again (it can take up to 2 hours).
Do not discard the remaining white chocolate.
3. Once the chocolate coating has dried, cut off the tip of a few white chocolate chips (from the handful that you kept on the side). Dip the cut side of each chip into the remaining melted chocolate and glue it on the middle of your pokéball. That's the button :)!
4. Use the black gel to trace the outline of your pokéball.
Pokéball macarons assembling:
1. Transfer your Razz Berry buttercream to a piping bag (or a thick freezer Ziplock bag).
2. Pipe a dollop of buttercream in the center of half the shells, staying ~3 mm away from the circumference. Sandwich two macaron shells together and voilà :D
3. You can eat them immediately, but they taste better once refrigerated overnight ;)
4. Enjoy!
P.S. If you have any raspberry buttercream leftovers, it freezes very well in a tight-lidded container. Your filled macarons should be good for up to 5-7 days in the fridge, stored in air-tight packaging or containers.
Psst. By the way... Go Team Blue.
