Macawrongs

I am back from my much-needed trip to Melbourne and I have returned $150 poorer and 2kg heavier. But that is what holidays are about - shopping and eating yourself silly and Melbourne is the place to do just that. Aside from spending on clothes and stopping at every cupcake shop I saw in the city, I made a batch of macarons for the very first time.

Result? They were kinda fail. Despite reading articles about it, my first attempt at macaron-making wasn't very successful.

Regardless, it tasted fantastic. My friend (hi Janne!) from Melbourne and I made two types of filling: salty peanut butter and salted caramel.

French Macarons

(Recipe adapted from Wives with Knives)

Ingredients:

• 225 grams powdered sugar
• 125 grams almond flour 
• 110 grams egg whites (3-4) left at room temperature for 1-2 days before using
• 30 grams superfine granulated sugar
• food colouring (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 150 degrees C.
2. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
3. Using a digital scale, measure the powdered sugar and almond flour.  Sift the powdered sugar and almond meal with a medium sieve to remove any large or coarse bits.  
4. Measure the egg whites with the digital scale and place in the bowl of an electric mixer with the whip attachment.  Beat the egg whites and a pinch of salt on medium high speed until they form soft peaks.  Gradually, in small additions, add the granulated sugar and continue to beat until stiff peaks form.  I beat the mixture about 3-4 minutes.  When the egg whites are glossy, add food colouring and combine well.
5. Add about 1/3 of the almond/powdered sugar mixture to the egg whites and gently fold in.  Add another third and fold, and finally add the last third.  Keep folding until the mixture is well combined and falls in a slow ribbon from the spatula. Don't overmix.
6. Using a pastry bag with a large round tip, pipe the mixture onto a lined cookie sheet into approximately 1-1/2 inch disks.  
7. After piping, tap the baking sheet on the counter to release any air bubbles, then allow the macarons to set at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours before baking.  You should be able to touch the top and not have it stick to your finger.
8. Bake at 150 degrees C for 12 - 16 minutes. Slide the macarons with the parchment off of the cookie sheet and allow to cool on the counter.  

Salty Peanut Butter Filling

(Recipe adapted from Cannelle et Vanille)

Ingredients:

• 125 grams creamy peanut butter
• 70 grams powdered sugar
• 25 grams softened butter
• 25 grams heavy cream
• 5 grams vanilla extract
• 3 grams fine sea salt

Method:

1. Cream all ingredients together for a smooth filling.

Salted Caramel Filling

(Recipe adapted from Syrup and Tang)

Ingredients:

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

Method:

1. 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.
2. As soon as the sugar is liquid, add another third of the dry sugar and melt, stirring gently.
3. Repeat with the remaining sugar.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. Stir well (or use a handmixer) until the caramel is smooth and has cooled somewhat.
7. Refrigerate the caramel. It will firm up after an hour or two.

Macarons

Junk inside your trunk

This week's recipes are high in fat, sugar and all things bad for your body but heavenly for your taste buds.

Some days I feel like exercising restraint on my diet by feeding it with healthy foods, other times I feel like abusing it with cookies, cakes and chips.

Today feels like the latter.

Nat and I had a Gossip Girl marathon and proceeded to consume chocolates, popcorn, chocolate caramel biscuits, Tim Tams, carrot cake, chocolate fudge Pop Tarts and chips. In addition to this, I've had white chocolate Kinder Bueno, Lindt dark chili chocolate, Lindt dark roasted almond chocolate and chocolate buttercream cake in the past 2 days. 

I still feel like doing my digestive system some more damage. These recipes would be a good start.

Pretzel Cookies with Chocolate and Peanut Butter Chips

From Sugar Cooking

Oh peanut butter chips, why won't you come to New Zealand?! I long for you so. Nat and I were having a debate over whether sweet and salty was a good combination. She said no, I said yes.

Mini Turtle Brownie Bites

From The Other Side of 50

Another topic Nat and I debated about over episodes of Gossip Girl was caramel. Turns out Nat doesn't like caramel. I've only recently began to form a liking for it. Either way, chocolate brownies with caramel sauce sounds damn good.

Snickers Caramel Cheesecake Cookies

From Picky Palate

The words in this recipe sound good on their own but better when strung together in a sentence. 

Peanut Butter Honey Brownies

From Spoonful of Sugar

You can't have junk food without peanut butter of some kind. In this recipe it's in the form of brownies with a honey filled centre. I like to think the healthiness of the honey offsets the calorific nature of everything else in the brownies.

Baked Doughnuts

From How to Eat a Cupcake

 

Funny how this is the only recipe of the ones listed that I'm actually excited to make. The reason being is that I can finally make doughnuts without using a fryer! I've come to believe that baking is a healthier method than frying, so these baked doughnuts sit on top of my list of things to bake in the near future.  

I feel like I've gained ten pounds just blogging about junk food. I've got to feed the fat kid inside of me!

Recipes of the week

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls

From Joy the Baker

My first taste of cookie dough was in Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream, and ever since then, I've been hooked. Most of the time they taste delicious, albeit artificial, (like Kit Kat Cookie Dough) and sometimes I can't get over the rawness of it. When I tried Baskin Robbins' chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream in Sydney, it had a really eggy taste to it that put me off. Still, I like the sound of cookie dough and any recipe with it always catches my eye.

Nutty White Chocolate Blondies

From Chow

In five words: big chunks of white chocolate.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

From Jamie Cooks It Up

What attracted me to this recipe was the use of mayonnaise to make these sweet muffins. I've heard of zucchini, chili and bacon used in chocolate recipes, but not mayonnaise. Apparently the mayonnaise gives the muffins a moist texture. The recipe even says you can substitute mayonnaise for salad dressing if you don't have a tub of mayo handy. 

Banana Caramel Cupcakes

From Bakers Royale

Continuing with bananas, these cupcakes look and sound absolutely delicious. There are a number of ingredients involved but these are readily available in your pantry (with the exception of heavy cream for the filling). This recipe seems similar to the banana cupcakes Natalie and I baked that were meant to be accompanied with a toffee icing. But this one is a lot harder to assemble, but I would presume to be a lot tastier. 

David Leibovitz's Chocolate Chip Cookies

From Serious Eats

Chocolate chip cookies so famous it needs an equally famous chef's name in front of it. But I don't know who David Leibovitz is (although his name sounds familiar). I may have heard of him from watching Top Chef or this recipe has been circling around the food blogosphere. I think it's the latter. Everyday a recipe for chocolate chip cookies would feature on FoodGawker or TasteSpotting, with posters claiming theirs is the chunkiest, richest, sweetest, chewiest chocolate chip cookie. On the same site, there is a taste test to see which are the best chocolate chips to use for chocolate chip cookies. To me, chocolate chip cookies are plain and boring, and are not something I would bake. But if it's David Leibovitz's Chocolate Chip Cookies, I just might.

What to do with leftover puff pastry?

Make Apple Tarte Tatin!

Dusted with icing sugar.

A day of complementaries

The answer to my tweet is yes; fudge can be baked. It turns out chewy and as delicious as it was before it was baked. The reason I asked was because Natalie came back from Wellington with a log of soft Russian fudge, which is my favourite type. I wanted to bake it but wasn't sure how it would react to high temperatures in the oven.

To try this out, I found a Donna Hay recipe that could use fudge as a replacement for caramel lollies on cookies. I also omitted 1/3 cup of brown sugar the recipe asked for as the fudge is certainly sweet and caramel-ly enough.

Caramel Fudge Cookies

Ingredients:

• 60g unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup golden syrup
• 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour, sifted
• fudge pieces or caramel lollies, halved

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Place the butter and golden syrup in a saucepan over low heat and stir until the butter is melted and dissolved.
3. Set aside to cool.
4. Add the flour to the butter mixture and mix until a smooth dough forms.
5. Roll tablespoonfuls into balls and place on baking trays lined with non-stick baking paper.
6. Press to flatten and top each with half a fudge piece or caramel lolly.
7. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden.
8. Allow to cool on the trays.

Makes approx 24

Print-friendly recipe here.

Nat's opinion was that the fudge tasted similar to the cookie base, so there wasn't an interesting contrast in flavours. That was a common theme in our baking that day... (as you'll later see)

International Peanut Butter Cookie Day

Yes yes, we are indeed guilty of missing the day. For those of you who didn't know, it was on the 12th of June. I found out the day after, great use that was (confound exams)!

But here's another kind of cookie to cheer up your day. Let me present to you the alfajores, an obscure Argentine treat that I discovered at this bustling haven called Las Chicas that also serves the most glorious Eggs Benedict in Melbourne. Tip: Grab a seat in the intimate courtyard at the back of the cafe during summer; you'll feel like you're in your very own secret garden.

Since then, I've had a ginormous craving for it and have found the perfect authentic recipe here.

The rummiest cookies you'll ever taste

Full plate

Dulce de Leche that oozes out when you sandwich them together

The cookies were very rummy. We used some leftover Coruba rum in the liquor cabinet and it was just nice! Tip on the Dulce de Leche though, I found that the easiest way for me was still to double boil it, as it took up way too much space in the oven. Or even easier still- store bought ones are always available.

We found that the cookies were indeed better the next day with dark chocolate drizzled on top (we promise pictures next time- we couldn't wait for the camera and polished them off that instant).

What did we do with the leftover caramel/Dulce de Leche you may ask?

Naturally, we polished them off too! With peanut butter, no less. And corn chips. Bizarre we know, but it was the only thing left in my pantry that was plain... and guess what?! The weird combination works!

Guess International Peanut Butter Cookie Day wasn't ruined after all .