Lychee Macarons

2014 year end had been a very busy period with lots of gatherings and a family trip with a few friends and their families, hence no blog posts then (yikes!). I have been baking a lot of macarons for the gatherings, mainly because macarons are very colourful and nice to look at and a lot of people, though find them too sweet, still cannot resist having one. In addition, macarons are individually portioned, unlike a whole cake. Hence that is often my no-brainer when coming to making something to bring to a party. I have been experimenting with different flavours of macarons, some are very "safe" flavours like chocolate mint, vanilla. Some are more exotic like honey + fig + red wine; I like to try out unique flavours since macarons are pretty much the only thing (at least for what I can think of for now) that I can play with flavours (I cannot imagine a salt & vinegar cake and yes, there are salt & vinegar macarons!). My friend O at The Kwoks gave me an idea of making lychee flavour macarons and so I went on to modify a basic buttercream to make it a lychee buttercream. I also have many friends who have asked me for my macaron shells recipe so I will be sharing the shell recipe in this post too.

   

For the shells, I did the unorthodox method of blending (instead of sifting) the almond meal and icing sugar together, simply because it is extremely tedious to sift the almond meal through the fine sieve. I use the Italian Meringue method for my macaron shells so you will need a candy thermometer for the sugar syrup. If you have no idea what I am talking about at this point, I advise you to watch a YouTube video on how to make an Italian Meringue; this is crucial in making the macaron shells so it is important you do all the homework before you start making! :)

It is also essential that your mixer bowl is made of metal instead of plastic because we will be pouring hot syrup into it.



Lychee Macarons!

 

Macarons (shells)

adapted from Zumbarons
makes about 100 pieces (i.e. 50 macarons)

Ingredients:

• 300 gm almond meal
• 300 gm icing sugar
• 110gm egg whites - in mixer bowl
• 300gm caster sugar
• 75 gm water
• 110gm egg whites
• food coloring of your choice   

 

  

Almond meal mixed with icing sugar

 

  

The blended almond and icing sugar mixture

  Method:  

1. Mix almond meal and icing sugar and put into a food processer to pulse it. If you have a small blender, do it in batches.
2. Put 110 gm egg whites into your metal mixer bowl. The bowl must be free of grease.
3. Put water and caster sugar into a deep but small base pot (so that the water level is not too shallow) and clip a candy thermometer to the pot. Bring the syrup to a boil until it reaches 118⁰C.
4. While the syrup is cooking, turn on your stand mixer on low speed and start to whisk your egg whites. Your syrup will be cooking while your whites are being whisked. The whites should be whipped to fine foamy stage when the syrup reaches 118⁰C.   
5. When the syrup reaches 118⁰C, remove from heat and slowly pour it down the side of the mixer bowl, with the mixer on medium speed. Take care not to let the hot syrup touch the whisk lest you get scalded. When all the syrup has been poured in, turn the speed up to medium high. Whip till the meringue reaches stiff peak and glossy and cooled to room temperature.        
6. Add the food coloring to the meringue and give it a final whip.
7. Add the remaining (un-whipped) egg whites to the almond and icing sugar mixture to a big mixing bowl and fold in your meringue.
8. Fold until you get a lava like consistency. Fill a piping bag (with #8 piping tip) with the macaron batter and pipe the shells onto baking paper lined trays.
9. Air dry the shells until they have formed a skin. The shells will feel dry to touch and do not stick to finger and they will look matt.
10. Bake the macaron shells at 140⁰C for 15min. I use the fan mode and bake 3 trays at a time for my oven.
11. Remove from oven and let the macaron shells cool down completely on trays before removing them. The shells will still be sticky while warm and might break and crack if you remove them before completely cooled.

Put egg whites into a clean metal mixer bowl

     

Boil the syrup until it reaches 118⁰C

   

The whites should be whipped till fine foam when the syrup is ready

 

the meringue will be glossy when done

  

folding in the Italian meringue into the almond mixture

 

Drying the macaron batter before baking

 

pairing the macaron shells

 

 

Lychee Buttercream 

adapted from Les Petits Macarons

Ingredients:

• 3 egg whites
• 200 gm caster sugar
• 57 gm water
• 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
• 227 gm cold unsalted butter, cubed
• 1 tsp lychee essence
• 1 can of lychee (finely chopped, strained)

Method

1. Put the egg whites in a clean metal mixer bowl. Make sure the bowl is free of grease.
2. Place the water and sugar in a small base pot. Clip your candy thermometer to the pot. Bring the syrup to boil at 118⁰C.
3. While the syrup is boiling, turn the mixer on and start to whip the whites. The whites should reach a fine foamy stage when the syrup is ready at 118⁰C.
4. Remove the syrup from heat and slowly pour it down the side of the mixer bowl. Turn the speed to medium/medium high. Whip till meringue has cooled to close to room temperature.
5. Slowly add in the cubed butter and salt while whipping the meringue. The mixture might start to turn soupy and runny, that is normal, continue to whip at medium high speed.
6. When the buttercream starts to come together and looks smooth and spreadable, add the lychee essence. Stop the mixer from time to time to taste if the essence is enough. Adjust accordingly.
7. Add the chopped lychee bits into the buttercream and fold in with a spatula. It is important that the syrup from the canned lychee is strained from the lychee bits before adding the lychee into the buttercream; we do not want to introduce more liquid into the buttercream.

adding the lychee bits to the buttercream

Assembly

to assemble the macarons, simply pair all the shells first before you fill them with the lychee buttercream. Use a piping bag to pipe a dollop of buttercream in the centre of one shell and sandwich it with another shell. Give it a slight twist as you sandwich the cream. Ideally the cream should take up 1/3 of the whole macaron when you view it from the side. Just like a juicy hamburger! J

give your macarons lotsa filling!