Earl Grey Macarons with Honey and Lemon Buttercream

I have made these today for my trial run of my secret tea room on Sunday. Macarons improve with time as the flavours in the filling permeate the shell and as I have many other dishes to prepare and a house to get ready they are the ideal thing to make ahead of time.

This batch weren’t all perfect – most were but others only rose on one side and others erupted. A complete mix of success and failures all on one baking sheet! They still have me guessing each time I make them – I sit cross-legged looking in through the oven window to see how they are doing.  I am sure this story will sound familiar to others?

From reading blogs and posts I know the road to producing the perfect macaron is littered with bakers driven mad with frustration. How hard can it be to master those little innocuous looking almond meringues that only have 3 ingredients? Well its hard and I nearly joined the ranks of the mad. I had to call it a day and decided that attempt 14 would be my last - if they didn’t work then I would never try again.

My obsession – and that’s exactly what it became, had me reading every recipe and blog I could find in search of how to achieve the mythical macaron with its shiny, smooth shell and its little frilly feet. I watched every You Tube clip I could find including those in different languages just so I might see where I was going wrong. So many people seemed to make them with ease but mine always failed.

In the end I did succeed – yes attempt 14 did see me produce a perfectly formed macaron. Through trial and error, exact recording of recipes, oven temperatures and cooking times and concentrated reading of every online troubleshooting guide I could find I finally got there. Madness averted!

For me, and I say for me because I think most people need to find their own way and following this will in no way guarantee success, involves:

1. Using the Italian meringue method to make the macaronage
2. Using silicon baking paper on a good quality baking tray
3. Having my oven at 150 C in a conventional oven
4. Only baking one sheet at a time
5. Placing my baking sheet half way in the oven with another baking sheet on the shelf below.
6. Baking times vary – today my macarons cooked quickly – may be because they stood for an hour and a half to dry due to it being quite humid? But I always bake for 10 minutes and then turn the tray and then check every 5 minutes thereafter. When there is no wobble in the foot and I can lift a macaron clean from the paper I know they are ready.

Here’s my recipe from today

For the macarons:
120g egg whites, divided into 2 equal batches of 60g each
35g granulated sugar
150g finely ground almonds
150g icing sugar

2 Earl Grey tea bags

For the sugar syrup:
150g granulated sugar and 50g water

For the filling:

50g Butter

70g icing sugar

Zest of one lemon

1 and a half tbs of runny honey

Tsp of Earl Grey Tea

 Makes about 50 shells – 25 completely filled macarons

 Method:

Line your baking trays with silicon baking paper.

Break open the teabags and put in a processor to form a powder.

Put a teaspoon of the Earl Grey tea powder (next time I will add much more), the ground almonds and the icing sugar in a food processor for about 2/3 minutes. Sift the blended mixture into a bowl and discard of the big lumps that have been left behind.

Whisk 60g of egg whites and add to the almond/sugar mixture. It doesn’t matter that you knock the air out of the meringue to get the two mixed together. It will form quite a stiff mixture.

Whisk the remaining 60g of the egg whites to soft peaks and then add 35g sugar. Put the sugar and water in a saucepan to make the syrup. Heat until it reaches 118 C. Slowly add the boiling syrup to the egg whites and whisk on medium/high speed for about 10-15 minutes. They meringue will have become shiny and will have cooled.

Add a quarter of the meringue to the almond/sugar mixture. Mix well so that the mixture loosens. Now fold in the remaining meringue a quarter at a time. Mix until the two mixtures are completely combined and it has a little fluidity to it. To test this hold up the spoon and it should fall back in to the bowl slowly. If it runs quickly like a ribbon it will be over mixed.

Fit a piping bag with a plain tip and add the mixture. Pipe the macarons on to the baking sheet. Make them the size you want – I usually do about 5 cm across.

Sprinkle the tops with the tea powder.

Leave to rest so that the macaron  forms a skin – when it is touched your finger will not pick up any of the macaronage. This can take anything from 15 mins – 1and a half hours depending on the weather.

Bake at 150 C for 15-25 minutes.

Check to see if macarons are done by grabbing the top of one macaron and trying to shake it. They are done when the top barely slides against the skirt. If they are not done, extend baking time by two minutes intervals, checking after each extension. When ready leave on a cooling rack.

Make the buttercream by whisking all the ingredients together.

Sandwich 2 macaron together with the buttercream. Leave them a day or two (if you can) before eating.

Cooking from the Heart – Thoughts & Recipes

Last week I was given the good news that I had been awarded a small bursary from the Hebden Bridge Women’s Institute towards a cake making course of my choice. I had a quick trawl on the internet and  came across ‘Cooking from the Heart – Cakes with Claire from No 10 The Coffee House’ at the Cookery School at Dean Clough, Halifax . The course appealed to me because it was an opportunity to meet Claire who runs 10 The Coffee House  in Haworth. I have only visited once but it was an enjoyable, memorable experience with a fantastic range of coffee and loose leaf tea and the most scrumptious cakes. No. 10 really is the antithesis of our modern day international coffee shops and well worth the visit.

So on Saturday I made my way to Dean Clough. On arrival at the Cookery School all the attendees were personally greeted by Claire who had baked that morning a wide range of her cakes for all of us to taste. They were accompanied by various syrups and crème fraiche and Claire advised which would best compliment each cake. It was a true sensory sensation – they were a delight to look at, smelled divine and tasted absolutely delicious. The mix of flavours and textures made each cake a truly individual eating experience. I think the ums and ahs from the attendees meant no other words were needed!

Claire then spoke to the group. She told us how 10 The Coffee House  had begun 8 years ago when Claire had no idea if there was a place in market for her coffee and cake. What Claire had however was her passion for what she was doing and her love of baking. Eight years on Claire has a successful business and what you see in her eyes is still a love of what she does and contentment with her life. It was an inspirational story about following your heart and doing what you love and trusting in your own beliefs.

What was interesting is that Claire has never had any training in cake making. Claire talked about how she works on instinct using touch and smell and sight as guidance in creating and baking her cakes.  She doesn’t use scales to measure her ingredients and other than a hand blender she doesn’t use food mixers/processors believing that cake ingredients respond better to human touch than the cut of the processors blade and that through touch you know when, for example you should stop rubbing the butter into the flour. Claire has a relaxed approach to baking too – she believes that anxiety and other negative feelings comes out in your baking – in my words ‘a troubled baker will make a troubled cake’.

Claire doesn’t believe in perfection either – that for example its OK to patch your pastry. I found this particularly liberating as I often spend far too much time thinking my cakes are not ‘perfect’ –that somehow they are good enough. Chatting to Claire I realised that perfection isn’t really attainable and that spending time trying to achieve this ‘perfection’ means we are on a constant unfulfilling journey.

Assistant Chef Jason from The Cookery School then demonstrated how to make a Banana and Passion Fruit Loaf and Claire demonstrated making a Chocolate and Raspberry Tart. We all went to our own work stations and made the loaf and tart with Claire and Jason providing individual support and advice.

I picked up loads of hints and tips: how to clean a sharp knife without splicing your fingers open (ah that’s the way you do it!); that passion fruit are at their sweetest  when they are at their crinkliest; that you can easily separate an egg using a plate and an egg cup. But most of all what I got out of the day was the confidence to believe in myself, my dreams and my baking. It was thoroughly enjoyable and inspirational afternoon. Thanks Hebden Bridge WI for the opportunity to have this experience.

Here are the recipes that we made:

Banana & Passion Fruit Cake

Ingredients:

200g unsalted butter at room temperature

200g caster sugar

4 medium eggs – beaten

2 over ripe bananas – mashed

4 ripe (crinkly skinned) passion fruit

200g self raising flour

Method:

Heat the oven 180C or gas Mark 4. Beat the butter and sugar together until pale, light and fluffy. Add the beaten egg a tablespoon at a time beating between each addition. Beat in the mashed banana. Cut the passion fruit into halves and scoop out the flesh and seeds in to the mixture. Mix well to combine. Fold in the flour. Pour in to a lined tin. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool and store in an airtight tin. Can be frozen.

Chocolate and Raspberry Tart

Ingredients

Short crust pastry (see recipe below)

150g halved raspberries

12 whole raspberries

10 fresh mint leaves – thinly slice (I didn’t like the mint and wouldn’t use it again)

250 ml double cream

150g dark chocolate

25g maple syrup

4 tbs of unsalted butter

Method:

Pre heat the oven to gas mark 6. Butter a 23cm tart ring and place on a baking sheet. On a lightly floured surface roll out the pastry and fit it in to the ring. Chill for 20 minutes. Line the pastry with parchment paper and full with baking beans. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove parchment and beans and bake for a further 5 minutes. Remove tart from the ring and allow to cool on a rack.

In a medium bowl mix the halved raspberries with the mint (if using). Place evenly over the bottom of the tart. Bring the cream to boil. Remove from heat and add chocolate and maple syrup, whisk until smooth and creamy. Whisk in the butter one piece at a time. Pour mixture over the raspberries and allow to cool. Transfer to a fridge for at least 2 hours.

To serve, cut the tart using a sharp knife dipped in hot water, wiping in between each slice. Serve with the remaining raspberries.

Short Crust Pastry

Ingredients:

200g plain flour

½ tsp of salt

100g of butter –diced

50g caster sugar

2 egg yolks

2-3 tbs cold water (Claire doesn’t add water and I decided to do the same– this made the pastry short  and difficult to get in to the flan ring in one piece. But you can piece the pastry together and it baked well and I ended up with a wonderful biscuit pastry case)

Place the flour, salt and butter in a mixing bowl. Cut and rub in the butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. (Claire did this until she felt the flour had been worked enough – this meant that it didn’t resemble fine bread crumbs as it bigger lumps). Add the egg yolks and bring together in a ball. Wrap in cling film and chill for 30 minutes.

Red & Blackcurrant Crunchy Syrup Loaf

What do you do when a friend turns up with a basket full of red and black currants – make a cake of course!

 

These little jewels looked so inviting I didn’t want them hidden in a sponge so I decided to experiment. I made a sponge mixture and did an alternate layers of sponge and currants -sponge first then currants then sponge then currants and finally finishing on sponge. I kept back a 3rd of the currants, mashed them, added lemon juice and sugar and I put this in the cake as soon as it came out the oven. This was the result

 

So what worked – well the sponge was lovely and light and fluffy, the balance between sweet and tart was well balanced and everyone (including the kids) enjoyed it.

What didn’t work so well – I think mashing the currants to get the juice out made the top look like it had been in a road crash and it lost that jewelled look! I did add a few left over currants to the top and it did improve its appearance. I think I also needed a little extra cake mix as the loaf didn’t rise as much as I had hoped (possibly because of the weight of the currants?). Not all of the topping went crunchy so I should have added a little more sugar. And finally the 2nd layer of currants wasn’t very distinctive. Personally I was OK with that but I did wonder if the tip I read somewhere about rolling your fruit in flour before putting them in a cake might have stopped the second layer sinking? Here’s the revised recipe if you would like to have a go.

For the Sponge:

180g caster sugar

180g butter

180g self raising flower

3 eggs weighing about 180g in their shells

1 tsp of vanilla extra

For the Filling and Topping:

Red and/or black currants – 330g divided in to 3 equal portions

juice of half to one lemon

150g of granulated sugar

Method:

Grease and line a 2 lb loaf tin. Preheat an oven to 180c.

Make the sponge base by creaming the butter and sugar together until it is light and fluffy. Beat in one egg at a time. Add a tablespoon of flour if the mixture starts to curdle. Fold in the flour. Add the vanilla extra and fold again.

Put about 1/3rd of the cake mixture in to the loaf tin. Add 1/3rd of the currants. Cover with another 1/3rd of the cake mixture. Add 1/3rd of the currants. Finally cover with the remaining cake mixture.

Bake in the oven for about 50 minutes or until a skewer come out clean.

Ten minutes before the cake is due to come out of the oven make the topping. Combine the lemon juice and the sugar until you have a think crunchy syrup then fold in the currants.

As soon as the loaf comes out of the oven prick all over and pour on the syrup. Leave to cool completely before attempting to take the loaf out the tin.

Lovely Pink Bunting

Some time back I purchased some pretty Cath Kidston bunting that I hoped I would use for a ‘Molly Coddle’s Cakes Stall’ at the local Farmers Market. Six months on and I am still on the waiting list. It was the frustration of seeing others selling their cakes at these markets that finally made me think that I had to find another  way to get my cakes to an appreciative AND paying audience. So that’s how I decided to start doing pop-up tea rooms and parties.

It is very exciting that my friend Becky Cakes and myself will be doing our very first pop up tea room on August 11th. We are doing it as a fundraiser for Marie Curie – both Becky and myself have recently lost our Mums to cancer so it seems a good cause to support. I have been thinking about what needed to be done to make the pop up tea room a real success and I realised that I didn’t have enough bunting to decorate The Roundhouse. If I was more practical and had a sewing machine I could probably make the bunting but I’m not and I don’t.

I didn’t want to pay too much for the bunting so I spent some considerable time looking at all the different Ebay sellers – there are many who make bunting. In the end I went for this lovely pink bunting – 30 meters for £9 including postage. Its cheap and cheerful and I think it will do just fine.

En Vacance and in search of French Patisserie Part 3 — Gâteau St. Honoré

It seems apt to leave my musings on my recent visit to France with my best patisserie experience. The Gâteau St. Honoré (named after the patron saint of bakers) was a heavenly eating experience!

With a crispy puff pastry base, a crown of choux pastry puffs filled with creme patisserie, held together by crunchy caramel and cream it was a thing of beauty.

It was almost too beautiful too eat – well I did say almost!

If you would like to see how to make a Gâteau St. Honoré  I would recommend watching Michel Roux Jnr on You Tube: St Honoré with Chantilly Cream 

En Vacance and in search of French Patisserie Part 2 — The Tarte

What a delight these were to the eyes – they were just irresistible at €1.80 each (£1.44). The tart cases were made from pâte sucrée (translated from the French as sweet dough). It was a perfectly sweetened short pastry cooked to perfection, rich,  crumbly and delicious – you could have quite happily eaten this without any filling!

 

 

The tart au citron

I was a little disappointed with only because I was surprised to find it filled with what I could only describe as very sweet lemon curd. My only other experiences of eating a tart au citron consisted of an altogether different filling – much sharper and far less sweet.

 

 

Lemon meringue (not sure what the French name was for this)

This was essentially a tart au citron with meringue on top. This meringue was light and fluffy and melted very quickly in the mouth.

 

 

 

Tart au framboise

A raspberry jam lattice tart that took me back to childhood memories of my Nan’s tarts made with left over pastry from the Sunday lunch apple pie. Only difference was the thickness and shortness of the pastry case. Lovely!

 

 

Tart aux morceau (plum) with an almond frangipane.

This was my favourite. Perfectly balanced in each and every way – pastry to filling, sweetness to sourness, almond to fruit.

 

 

 

Devoured!

En Vacance and in search of French Patisserie Part 1 — The Macaron

I got back from France Sunday evening and spent most of yesterday with the post holiday blues. I definitely could have done with another week away. I was particularly excited about the visit to France as I was last there 31 years ago when  was just 19 years of age and doing Interrail. At that time I had no interest in food and other than a general dislike for the smelly cheese and the rare meat I don’t have many food memories.

Having become increasingly interested in French Patisserie I saw this holiday as a chance to undertake much needed research. My main excitement was around the mystical macaron - mystical because these seemingly easy looking delicacies require an element of magic to make them work, as well as skill and sheer determination! Anyone who has tried will know they are so hard to get right. I had 14 attempts until I finally made the perfect macaron.

The local patisserie is Soreze sold mini macarons in six flavours: lemon, chocolate, coffee, pistachio and vanilla. As I have only ever eaten a macaron that I have had myself I was full of expectation.

But I was so disappointed – they looked so beautiful and perfect – with the shiny hard shell, the illusive frilly foot and the lovely looking filling.

Unfortunately they were all dry and rather tasteless. I don’t know if it’s because they were mini macarons and maybe in the cooking they are more prone to dry out? Or maybe they were too old? Whatever the reason I cannot express my disappointment.

Luckily on the last but one day of our holiday we visited an amazing patisserie in the local town of Revel.

Here we purchased one totally exquisite pistachio macaron that was just perfect in every way – its flavour, its texture – a sheer delight to eat. So where’s the photo? Well we devoured the macaron before I even thought of taking a photo! That perfect almond meringue restored my faith and has inspired me to continue my macaron making journey.