Macarons with Earl Grey Chocolate Ganache

I was in the mood of making some macarons as I had some stale egg whites in the fridge. It's been a while since I made these little treats. Although they are really sweet, it's nice to have a few with a cup of hot tea. I decided this time round to add a variety of colours for a change and sandwich them with a chocolate ganache that is infused with earl grey tea leaves. In fact you can use other types of tea leaves such as lavendar, chai or mint if you don't fancy earl grey.



Macaroons with Earl Grey Chocolate Ganache
(makes about 60 shells)

Ingredients:

90g egg whites, about 3 eggs
70g fine castor sugar
120g icing sugar
90g finely ground almonds

Method:

1) For the whites: the day before (24hrs), separate your eggs and store the whites at room temperature in a covered container. If you want to use 48hrs (or more) egg whites, you can store them in the fridge. Bring egg whites to room temperature before using.

2) Sift icing sugar and ground almonds into a bowl.

3) In a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, place egg whites into the bowl and whisk until frothy (about 1 minute).

4) Add half the sugar and continue to whisk on medium speed for another minute.

5) Add the remaining sugar and whisk on medium speed until it resembles soft peak meringue peaks. The meringue should have a glossy look to it. Add in the food colouring of your choice and whisk briefly to blend in the colours. Detach mixing bowl from machine.

6) Fold in half the dry ingredients using a spatula. Fold from below of the bowl to upwards in an 8 shape formation.

7) Add in the remaining dry ingredients and fold until mixed. Do not over-mix your batter.

8) Put mixture into a piping bag and pipe big rounds of about 1 1/2" circles onto parchment lined baking trays. Make sure that you leave sufficient space in-between each.

9) Bake for about 10 mins in a pre-heated oven of 160C.

10) Once baked and if you are not using them right away, store them in an airtight container out of the fridge for a couple of days or in the freezer. To fill: pipe or spoon about 1 tablespoon of ganache in the center of one shell and top with another one.

Earl Grey Chocolate Ganache

275g thickened cream
45g glucose (can be omitted)
250g Pur Caribe chocolate 66%
12g earl grey tea leaves
50g unsalted cold butter

Method:

1) Place chocolate in a metal bowl and place it over a saucepan of simmering water. Ensure that the base of the bowl does not touch the water. Stir the chocolate until it has melted.

2) In the meantime place thickened cream in a saucepan and place over a medium heat. Once it starts to simmer remove from fire. Pour cream over the tea leaves and glucose. Cover the bowl with a plate to insure the mixture for about a minute.

3) Strain the thickened cream and pour a bit over the chocolate. Stir the chocolate mixture and then slowly pour in the remaining cream.

4) Add in the butter and using a hand-held blender, blend the chocolate mixture until it becomes a smooth and glossy ganache.

5) Place mixture in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes until it is easy to pipe.

Pistachio Almond Cookies

We were at Borders one weekend and as I browsed through the cookery section, I came across some books which featured cookie recipes. I particularly liked one book as it featured only one cookie dough with more than 20 variations to it. I thought this was great and furthermore as I read through some of the recipes, I realized that the ingredients and instructions were simple and easy.

I decided to try one recipe out one evening after work. Everything was done using one bowl only and I didn't even need to use my mixer for this. The cookies had a buttery taste to it and the pistachios added that extra crunch to each bite. I could not wait for the cookies to be completely cool before doing a trial test on about three.




Pistachio & Almond Cookies
Recipe Adapted from The Cookie Collection
Makes about 30 cookies

Ingredients:

225g unsalted butter, softened
140g castor sugar
1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
2 tsp vanilla extract
225g plain flour
55g ground almonds
55g pistachio nuts, finely chopped
1/2 tsp salt

Method:

1) Put the butter and sugar into a bpwl and mix well with a wooden spoon. Then beat in the egg yolk and extract.

2) Sift the flour and salt into the mixture. Add the ground almonds and stir until thoroughly combined. Halve the dough, shape into balls, wrap in clingfilm and chill in the refrigerator for about 40 minutes.

3) Preheat the oven to 190C. Line 2 baking sheets with baking parchment.

4) Unwrap the dough. Pinch some dough, about 1 tablespoon, and roll into a balls. Put on the baking sheet, spaced well part. Flattened each ball slightly with your palm.

5) Bake for 10 - 12 minutes. Levre to cool on the baking sheets for 5 - 10 minutes, then using a palette knife, carefully transfer the cookies to wire rack to cool completely.

Strawberry Mousse

We seem to be having an abundance of strawberries which are being imported from USA because it's summer time there. Sometimes if I'm lucky I'm able to get really sweet berries. Otherwise they are usually half ripen.

With so much strawberries on sale now, this makes me want to search out recipes using this fruit. I thus decided to try out a mousse which seems relatively easy. And I must say that it was not only easy, it was delicious as well! The mousse had a slight tartness to it and was extremely smooth with each bite. You can also opt to serve the mousse with some whipped cream, fresh cut strawberries or a strawberry sauce.





Strawberry Mousse

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons powdered gelatin
1 tablespoon water
8 oz (210g) strawberries, pureed
1/4 cup (50g) sugar
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3/4 cup (190ml) heavy cream

Method:

1) Prepare the strawberry mousse: sprinkle the gelatin over the water in a small bowl and set aside to bloom (soften).

2) In a medium saucepan set over medium heat, stir together the strawberries and sugar just until hot.

3) Add the gelatin and stir until it is completely melted. Let cool to room temperature.

4) In the meantime, whip the heavy cream to soft peaks. Once the strawberries are at the right temperature, carefully fold the whipped cream into the fruit base.

5) Pour into serving bowls and chill for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Espresso Truffles

I had always thought that truffles were difficult to make. Probably because these delicious “melt in the mouth” chocolates always looked so pretty and delicate over the counter. If I happen to go to any chocolate boutique shops, I would just gaze at the delicate workmanship put into some of their truffles.

I can’t really say that I am a chocolate addict. I do like chocolates but will not crave for it and at times not touch any even though the entire box of tempting treats could be right in front of my nose. I clearly remember that the last time I ever bought a box of dark chocolate truffles was in February. Now that’s a long time ago! And some of you will likely say I must be mad! Although the box was small, probably had about a dozen or so pieces in it, would you believe that this same box was still in my fridge until a week ago! My husband was rummaging through the refrigerator, in one of his “have you got anything to munch” moods when he came across the box of truffles. He took it back out with him from the kitchen to the living room and plop himself in front the telly. He said to me in passing that the truffles were a bit dry already, likely because of the timeframe it had been sitting in the fridge. I thought he would have a few pieces and put the rest back into the fridge. It was until much later in the evening that I discovered how much he had really put away .. into his stomach that is. The evidence of an extremely empty box of truffles was thrown into the kitchen trash bin. I guess I sort of exclaimed “What! You mean you finished everything!”. His standard reply to such situations would be “I might as well finish it. It was sitting a bit too long there.”



Espresso Truffles:
Makes about 35 pieces

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (125ml) heavy cream
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
3 tablespoons of Kahlua
65g of good quality semi-sweet chocolate (55% cocoa)
65g of good quality bitter-sweet chocolate (70% cocoa)
Chopped pistachios, desiccated coconut and cocoa powder for coating

Method:

In a small heavy saucepan, bring the cream and espresso powder to a simmer over low heat. Add the liqueur and remove from the heat. Add the chocolate and let stand a couple of minutes then stir the ganache until completely smooth. Let cool to room temperature then refrigerate until firm, about 3 hours. With a spoon or a melon baller, scoop out balls of ganache, roll them in between your palms fairly quickly (this is the messy part!). Then coat the balls in either chopped pistachios, desiccated coconut or cocoa powder. Refrigerate the truffles for at least 2 hours before serving.

Grissini (Thin Bread Sticks)

Grissini are Italian bread sticks which I have read originates from Turin. They are usually thin and long individual pieces of dry bread and are often used as an accompaniment to many Italian meals. You can often find it served on your table as part of the bread basket.

I haven't made grissini before but by the looks of these bread sticks, I think they would be fun to make. The dough is pretty much similar to that of pizza and like pizza you can flavour them with practically anything you fancy. You don't have to worry about how the sticks look and it's pretty much like playing with dough. I made these on a Sunday lazy afternoon and we had these for tea time with a cup of coffee. The grissini were delicious warm from the oven and I think the flavours I enjoyed best were the ones with garlic and parmesan.





Grissini (Thin Bread Sticks)
Yield: 64 bread sticks
Recipe Adapted from Baking Illustrated

Ingredients:

623g all purpose flour
397g water at room temperature
2 tsp instant yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Topping of your choice (I used a mixture of various ingredients. 1st batch - sesame and fennel seeds; 2nd batch - cracked black pepper with Italian herbs; 3rd batch - garlic flakes, crispy bacon bits and grated parmesan and 4th batch - garlic flakes, grated parmesan and oregano)

Method:

1) Combine the flour, yeast, and salt in a mixing bowl of a stand-mixer. Using a dough hook, mix the ingredients for about a minute.

2) Combine the water and olive oil in a liquid measuring cup. With the mixer on low speed, add the liquid to the dry ingredients in a steady stream.

3) Change to speed 2 and mix the ingredients for about 5 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic. (If the dough is still sticky, add a bit more flour)

4) Roll the dough into a ball and place the dough in a lightly oiled container. Turn the ball of dough around to ensure that it is all covered with the olive oil. Cover the container with clingwrap and let the dough rise at room temperature until doubled in volume, about 90 minutes.

5) Preheat the oven to 190C. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

6) Punch the dough down and then divide the dough into four equal pieces. The steps that follow will be repeated for each of the four pieces. Keep the pieces you’re not working with covered.

7) On a floured counter, roll the dough out into a rectangle about 12 x 8 inches. Cut the dough into 16 strips of equal width. A pizza cutter works very well for this.

8) Fold each strip over on itself (half lenthwise as this makes the dough stronger). On an unfloured surface, roll the strip into a long snake. Make it a bit longer than the length of your baking sheet, to allow for spring-back.

9) Place each strip evenly spaced apart across the width of the parchment-lined baking sheet.

10) Lightly spray or brush the grissini with olive oil and sprinkle on the topping. Cover the baking sheet loosely with clingwrap and leave aside for 20 minutes.

11) Bake for about 25 - 30 minutes, until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

Baking a Bakewell Tart with Daring Bakers

The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar . They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.

Don't ask me what is a Bakewell Tart cause frankly I have no clue whatsoever! However based on the initial pictures made by my fellow Daring Bakers it looked like a normal frangipane tart with the exception of a layer of jam in-between. I guess this type of tart is not that popular here in Singapore as I've not seen it in the bakeries that I have frequented. Anyway, this month's challenge again gives us the liberty of using any filing that we choose to pair off with the pastry crust and the franginpane. I toyed with many ideas, even to the extent of doing a chocolate crust. As June was nearly coming to an end, and partially due to my fault of having waited so long to do this challenge, I had to settle for something less exotic. However I did manage to squeeze in two different preserve/jam flavours.



The first is a cran-raspberry preserve. Using frozen berries, I placed 60g of raspberries, 30g cranberries with 30g sugar and 1 tablespoon of lemon zest into a saucepan. Place over a low heat and simmer, stirring, until the mixture becomes thick. There is no need to add any pectin as the cranberries have natural pectin which will help to thicken the jam. The second preserve/jam flavour is a pineapple one. In fact this preserve is commonly used for pineapple tarts which is a local speciality biscuit favoured during the Chinese New Year. I used a can of Dole crushed pineapple, juice removed and added in 1 stick of cinnamon, 2 annise seed and 3 cloves. The entire mixture was then placed over a very low fire and cooked for about an hour until it became thick and sticky.





Cran-Raspberry and Pineapple Coconut Bakewell Tartelettes
Makes ten 3-inch tartelettes

Sweet shortcrust pastry:

225g all purpose flour
30g sugar
1/2 tsp salt
110g (4oz) unsalted butter, cold (frozen is better)
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp lemon extract (optional, and you can use any other extract or flavouring of your choosing)
1-2 Tbsp cold water

Frangipane:

125g unsalted butter, softened
125g icing sugar
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract extract
125g ground almonds (or other nut of your choice)
30g all purpose flour

Jam or preserve of your choice

For the Dough:

1) Sift together flour, sugar and salt. Grate butter into the flour mixture, using the large hole-side of a box grater. Using your finger tips only, and working very quickly, rub the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Set aside.Lightly beat the egg yolks with the almond extract (if using) and quickly mix into the flour mixture. Keep mixing while dribbling in the water, only adding enough to form a cohesive and slightly sticky dough.

2) Form the dough into a disc, wrap in cling and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

For the frangipane:

1) Cream butter and sugar together for about a minute or until the mixture is primrose in colour and very fluffy. Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter may appear to curdle. In the words of Douglas Adams: Don’t panic. Really. It’ll be fine. After all three are in, pour in the almond extract and mix for about another 30 seconds and scrape down the sides again. With the beaters on, spoon in the ground nuts and the flour. Mix well. The mixture will be soft, keep its slightly curdled look (mostly from the almonds) and retain its pallid yellow colour.

Assemble the tartelettes:

1) Place the chilled dough disc on a lightly floured surface. If it's overly cold, you will need to let it become acclimatised for about 15 minutes before you roll it out.

2) Flour the rolling pin and roll the pastry to 5mm (1/4”) thickness, by rolling in one direction only (start from the centre and roll away from you), and turning the disc a quarter turn after each roll. When the pastry is to the desired size and thickness, transfer it to the tart pans, press in and trim the excess dough. Patch any holes, fissures or tears with trimmed bits.

3) Place the tarts on a baking sheet line with parchment paper and chill in the freezer for 15 minutes. (I made the tart dough the night before and kept the shells in the fridge overnight)

4) Preheat oven to 200C/400F. Position a rack in the center of the oven. (I did a variation to the original recipe by blind baking [using beans placed on top of a parchment paper] on the tart shells half way and then filing it with jam and frangipane. I then continued with the rest of the baking thereafter.)

5) Remove shell from freezer, spread as even a layer as you can of jam onto the pastry base. Top with frangipane, spreading to cover the entire surface of the tart. Smooth the top and pop into the oven for 30 minutes. Five minutes before the tart is done, the top will be poofy and brownish.

Banana Chocolate Chip Espresso Muffins

I haven't been baking muffins for ages now and decided to do so mid-week baking after work. Sometimes it's quite a stress reliever for me. I have friends who stress out by shopping, me on the other hand bake and I know for sure my office colleagues will be darn happy tomorrow morning.

Muffins are so easy to put together, you don't need a mixer, at times you don't need to cream the butter because the recipe calls for vegetable oil or at times melted butter, you only use at most 2 bowls (sometimes one will do)and I'm sure there is a whole lot more to add to this.




Banana Chocolate Chip Espresso Muffins
Makes 12 medium-sized muffins
Recipe adapted from the Baked Cookbook

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of mashed ripe bananas (about 4 medium-sized bananas)
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
113g (1 stick) of unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup of low-fat milk
1 large egg
1 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp strong instant espresso powder dissolved in 1 Tbsp of hot water
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extra
1 tsp of salt
1/2 cup of chocolate chips

Method:

1) Preheat oven to 180C (350F).

2) Line a cupcake tin with paper liners.

3) In a medium bowl, stir in the banana, sugars, butter, espresso, milk, vanilla extract and egg.

4) In another medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Make a well in the middle of the bowl and gently add in the banana mixture. Stir into just combined.

5) Gently fold in the chocolate chips.

6) Fill each muffin tin about three quarters full and bake for about 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cupcake comes out clean.

7) Once cooked, move muffins to a cooking rack. The muffins can be stored in an air tight container for up to two days.