Saturday 5 January 2019

Vanilla latte macarons

Macarons have got to be one of the trickiest, fiddliest but oh so pretty little looking things in the world of baking. I have to be honest and admit that these have been my absolute most testing bake so far.. from failing to perfect the batter itself to having the patience in letting them rest for the required time so that they end up with their smooth outer casing and their defining characteristic- the feet

I have lost count of how many attempts it has taken me but I think I have finally *touch wood* got them worked out.

For the flavours for this batch I decided to go with a vanilla latte filling and I kept the shells white to contrast with the ganache filling

To make my vanilla latte macarons you will need

For the macarons:
175g icing sugar
175g ground almonds
150g egg whites
200g caster sugar

For the ganache:
300g dark chocolate
150ml double cream
1 tsp coffee powder

• Start by making your ganache as you want it to cool and thicken to a pipeable consistency to fill your shells with. Break up your chocolate and place into a bowl. Heat up your double cream in a saucepan with the coffee powder over a low heat till it just about starts to simmer, and pour all over the chocolate. Let it sit for a minute, then stir the mixture together until you have a smooth chocolate sauce. Set it aside covered with cling film to firm up.

• Place the ground almonds and icing sugar into a food processor and blitz together for a minute. Take out of the food processor and then sieve them into a separate bowl. Discard any large bits left in the seive, and set aside (these lumps are what will prevent the smooth shell for the macarons)

• Pour the egg whites into a bowl, and using a freestanding mixer or a hand held electric whisk, whisk the whites on a medium speed. When the whites start to form a few bubbles, turn up the speed very slightly and whisk till the mixture has soft peaks,  ( it will look like cotton wool ) and then start to add in the sugar a couple of tablespoons at a time

• Once all the sugar has been added, turn the speed up to full and mix the egg whites for 7-8 minutes until you get stiff peaks - the meringue should hold its shape if you turn the bowl upside down. At this point, add any food colouring and give the mixture one last whisk to ensure the colour is incorporated fully*

•Line 2 baking trays with baking paper. Add the sifted almond mixture to the meringue, using a spatula to gently fold until combined. Continue to fold slowly until the batter falls into ribbons when you hold the spatula up or you can make a figure 8 with the spatula without it breaking. Do not stir any more at this point

• Transfer the batter into a piping bag fitted with a round      tip. Pipe 4 dots of the batter in each corner of ths        baking paper and flip it over, gently pressing the paper down, this will help the baking paper stay in place whilst you pipe the meringue mixture


Pipe the meringue mixture onto the baking tray , in 3-cm blobs, spacing at least an inch apart. Tap the  baking sheet on your work surface a couple of times to release   any air bubbles.


Let the macarons sit at room temperature for 30 minutes     to 1 hour, until dry to the touch. They will form a skin whilst resting and this skin is what you need for the smooth crisp shell, and as they rise, the feet will then form whilst baking


Preheat the oven to 150˚C, and bake the macarons for 12-13 minutes. You'll know that they are done when they have their 'feet' and peel away from the baking paper without sticking. If they still stick a little, give them another minute and transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely before filling


• To fill the macarons, take one shell, and pipe a little blob of ganache into the middle of the shell, almost to the edges and carefully place another shell ontop. Repeat this process until you have used all the shells and have your completed macarons



* For the food colouring, gel colours work best, and the colour will lighten once the macarons are baking so add a little more than the shade you like for a vibrant colour

* I like to match up the shells size wise before filling them that way tou know which ones fit together as they won't all be the same size unless you are using a macaron mat or draw the circles onto the paper using a cookie cutter 


Cinnamon churros

Churros are something I've steered well clear of due to the fact that they are made from choux pastry but thankfully not anymore as in my last post I shared my succesful recipe for choux in my last post, so I thought it was high time I gave them a go.

The beauty of churros is that you can experiment with different flavours or dipping sauces to go along side them as they are so simple in flavour themselves.

For my first attempt I decided to stick to the classical cinnamon sugar, but I discovered a jar of lotus roscoff spread lurking in my cupboard of baking stuff so I ended up using it as a dipping sauce and it went very well


You could just have them dusted with icing sugar and devour them on their own or drizzle with melted chocolate or for a bit of a cheekier treat - a good lashing of nutella.

For my cinnamon churros you will need

1 x batch of my choux pastry
Piping bag with a star nozzle attached
Caster sugar
Ground cinnamon
Sunflower/ vegetable oil for frying

• To start, make up the cinnamon sugar by mixing tog some caster sugar with some ground cinnamon in a large flat plate- I didn't measure the cinnamon or the sugar, I just did it by eye.  I then lined another flat plate with kitchen paper to drain the oil off the churros as they are deep fried.

• I then made up one batch of my Choux pastry, and transferred the dough to a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle.

•  Heat up your oil in either a deep fat fryer or a a deep heavy based pan. The oil needs to be at a temperature of 190/195c 

• Very carefully, hold the piping bag with the dough in over the oil, and pipe the batter straight into the oil. Use a knife or pair of scissors to cut the dough off to your desired length. I piped my churros roughly just a little longer than my index finger, and fried 5- 6 at a time.*

• The churros should take about 4-5 minutes to cook and turn golden brown in colour. Remove them from the oil with a slotted spoon, then straight onto the kitchen paper. 

• Quickly transfer the churros to the plate with the cinnamon sugar and toss gently until evenly coated. Serve them as they are, or for a bit more of a treat, I drizzled mine with melted biscoff spread 




* I ended up with a batch of  almost 30 churros with the amount of dough for this recipe