Coffee Macarons and Salted caramel Filling( with no feet)

Chocolate and Raspberry Macarons

These chocolate and raspberry macarons were made a long time ago. I didn't make macarons for a long time... it should be more than a year already. As I have very little experience of making macarons, making it perfect is really hard. The macarons I made today was unsuccessful it has no feet and I have no clue why it happened......:(. I did it the same way just like the older patch.  The only reason I can think off was the drying process, may be the macaron was not dry properly before baking, or it could be the baking temperature .....etc. Anyway, I need more practice and I'll make this post for future reference.

The failed coffee macarons with salted caramel filling below have no feet, but still tastes delicious :D.

The coffee macarons and salted caramel filling recipes. I referred to Sue's blogs.

Coffee macarons shell ingredients

• 125 g pure icing sugar
• 125 g almond meal (almond flour or ground almond)
• 100 g egg whites (i separated 24 -48 hours in advance and keep in the fridge.)
• 125 g caster sugar (super fine sugar)
• 30 ml water (2 tablespoons)
• 7 g intant coffee( ground)

                                                                         Pic 1&2

                                                           Pic 3&4

Making macaroons shell
Method:

• Sift almond meal and icing sugar together through fine sieve and set aside.
• Divide egg whites into two equal portions (50 g each portion).  Pour the first portion of egg white (50 g)and coffee into the almond meal/icing sugar mixture (pic 1).  Mix and combine well, just set it aside (pic 4).
• Put the water and caster sugar in a heavy-base saucepan over medium-high heat(pic 2). When the syrup start to boil. Place the rest of egg white (50 g) into a mixing bowl, using the whip attachment, whip egg white to the soft peak. When the syrup reaches 118°C (on a thermometer), take if off the heat and let it cool down to 115°C.
• While the mixer is still running, slowly pour the sugar syrup down the side of the bowl. Be careful not to pour syrup onto the whip as it might spatter (pic 3).
• Continue mixing until the meringue cool down to slightly above body temperature (50°C) or when the side of the mixing bowl is warm to touch. The whipped egg white would be stiff and glossy (pic 5).

                                                          Pic 5 &6

                                                           Pic 7&8

• Mix a third of whipped egg white into the almond meal mixture and combine them well( pic 6). At this step, you can work the mixture very vigorously to blend the egg white with almond meal mixture. Fold the rest of whipped egg white into the mixture(pic 7) and mix well, yet gently, until the batter is smooth(pic 8). The batter will be thick. It resembles a very thick cake batter, or as many web sites describe it as a magma-like consistency ( it means the thick batter would flow slowly like a magma).

Pic 9&10

Pic 11&12

• Put the mixture into a piping bag fitted with 1-cm plain tip (pic 9). Pipe the staggering rows of 1-inch rounds onto baking papers or baking sheets (pic 10).
•  Let the piped shells stand at room temperature for 30 – 60 minutes to let the crust forms. This depends on the room temperature and humidity. When the piped shells are dry to touch without it sticking to your fingers. They are good to go into the oven.
• Preheat the oven to 160°C (fan-force or convection oven, increase the temperature by 20°C if you’re using conventional oven) for at least 15 minutes. Just before baking, turn the temperature down to 150°C and bake the macarons for 15 minutes.
• Lift the baking papers/sheets off the baking tray to the cooling rack and let it completely cool down before removing macarons (it is easier to remove cool macarons off the sheet. They are also less likely to stick to the paper).

• Sandwich cool macarons shell with chilled salted caramel.
• Store macarons in airtight container in the fridge. Macaron will taste better after it is chilled overnight.

Salted caramel filling recipe:

Salted caramel ingredients:

Pic 13&14



Pic 15&16
• 100 g caster sugar
• 165 g thickened cream (minimum 35% fat content)( I used milk and added 30g of butter)
• 15 g salted butter
• 70 g soften salted butter

Making salted caramel filling

• This caramel is done using dry-caramel method where sugar are melted on the medium high heat without any water (pic 14).
• Add 30 g of caster sugar to a heavy-based small saucepan over medium-high heat. Let the sugar melt and shake the pan every now and then to help sugar to melt. When the sugar is 
• melted (pic 15), put another 35 g of sugar into the pan and let it melt. Repeat with the rest of sugar. 
• Leave the sugar caramelised until it turns dark amber(pic 16). Remove the pan from the heat and add 15 g of butter. 
• Add warm thickened cream to the sugar mixture(pic 17). Be careful as the mixture might spatter. Quickly shake the pan to help blending cream and caramelized sugar.
• Put the saucepan back to medium-heat and let it boil until it reaches 108°C(pic 18 &19).
• Remove from heat and pour the mixture into a bowl (pic 20). Cover the mixture surface with cling wrap to prevent the skin forming. Set aside to cool down and won't melt butter in the next stage.

                                                                                                   

   Pic 17&18    

Pic 19&20

• When the sugar mixture is cool, beat butter on medium-high speed until it is light and fluffy (approx. 8 – 10 minutes). Mix the sugar mixture into the butter in two batches.
• Chill the mixture until ready to use to fill macarons.

Macaron with no feet

Chocolate & raspberry macarons

Coffee Wholemeal Rice Bun

Coffee Topping are piped on top of the bun before baking.


This is my second post in a day, I'm in love with all the different kinds of bread made by Carol and 孟老师。Happy to know that there are so many method of achieving soft bread.

For the past few posts on bread making, I have been using the tangzhong method, and this is my first experiment adding rice paste. The bread came out equally soft, just like the tangzhong method. Next time I can use leftover cooked rice to make these type of bread.

The bun I made today was a modified version of Carol's Wholemeal Custard Bun Recipe. If you are interested to know how carol did it please see below.

Carol's Custard Wholemeal Rice Bun


My Recipe is here:

To make rice paste ingredients:
100g Cooked rice
200g water

Method:
Mix cooked rice and water together in a sauce pan, bring it to a boil for a few minutes and let to cool. Blend it to a fine rice paste.




To make the coffee topping ingredients:
50g butter
40g icing sugar
1 whole egg beaten
2 teaspoon granulated coffee dissolve with 1 teaspoon water
50g plain flour


Method:
Beat the softened butter with icing sugar until everything well combine.
Gradually add in beaten eggs then the coffee mixture. Add the flour and beat until everything well incorporate. Place the mixture into a piping bag and keep in the fridge until ready to use.

To make custard filling ingredient:
1 egg
20g caster sugar
130g milk
10g flour
1 tsp unsalted butter
1/2 tsp brandy



Method:
Mix egg and sugar well with a whisk in a bowl.
Add the sifted flour, then very slowy pour in the boiling milk.
Return to the pan and cook over a low heat, stirring continuously with a whisk, until it begin to boil and thicken.
Remove from the heat and add the butter and brandy.
to avoid a skin forming while the cream is cooling, cover with a cling wrap.
Keep in the fridge until ready to use.


For the dough

To make the bun ingredients:

Main dough
230g Rice paste
200g Bread flour
100g Wholemeal flour
1 tsp Instant yeast
A pinch of salt
30g Sugar
40g Unsalted butter


Method:
Knead all the ingredients together except butter.
When the dough become a smooth dough, add in butter and continue kneading until the dough become smooth and elastic but not sticky.
First, prove dough for 45-60 minutes.
Punch down dough and divide into 12 pieces. Roll them into round balls .
Let it rest for 15 minutes before add in the custard filling.
Roll out each doughs to a flat disc and add the custard filling. Seal it tightly. Make sure you seal it tightly otherwise it will split out during baking.

Place each doughs on a baking tray, make sure they sit a part from each other because they might stick to each other during the baking. Cover the doughs with cling film and proof for 50 - 60 minutes.

Top the bun with the coffee topping before baking

Bake at 180C-190C for 15-18 minutes.

Serve.