Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Daring Bakers - Macarons




The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

My macarons are peach flavoured and filled with raspberry ganache. The nacarons behaved quite well, and had domes and feet, so I was pleased with them, even if they were not as aesthetically perfect as the macarons I made in July with a different recipe.




I had the benefit of reading the DB forums for the first half of the month before making these, and to flavour my macarons, I used peach tea, as suggested by Audax. The tea gave the macarons a pronounced peach flavour, and made flecks through the surface of the macaron for appearance and texture. However, even after 4 drops of liquid orange colouring, my macarons are not very peach-coloured - oh well.

Notice the feet!

It was the ganache, not the macarons themselves, which let me down. I tried a recipe for the ganache that says to add a third of a cup of raspberry jam to the cream and white chocolate for flavour. That is where disaster set in, and I ended up with a sticky, runny mess that never set up. However, chocolate is an expensive commodity, and I wasn't prepared to pour it into the bin and start again when really the point of the exercise for me was the macaron base, not the filling.



Despite the runny, hopeless filling, these macarons tasted delicious, and it hasn't put me off making macarons again should I have a yen to do so. However, it was nonetheless disappointing that the filling spoiled the appearance of the macarons.

Here's a shot of inside the macaron - it had a lovely chewy texture inside:



You can see a rainbow display of macarons of all varieties by going to
The Daring Bakers blogroll. And for some cute as a button but no cal macarons, see Sian Keagan's wool macarons at Lushlee.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

They look great! Good job.

Ivy said...

Macarons are something I've always wanted to make but somehow I am afraid to make them. Pity the filling didn't meet your expectations but otherwise they sound delicious.

Nutmeg Nanny said...

Your macaroons look great! I love that you flavored them with peach...I bet it was delicious :)

Susan @ My Wholefood Family Essentials said...

Wow, great job! The peach flavour sounds lovely. Mine were total disasters.

Julia @ Mélanger said...

The best thing about a 'less than perfect' batch of macarons, is that they still taste great. I'll keep with my Italian method moving forward. So much better!

Anonymous said...

Peach and raspberry sounds delicious! They look great, even if you weren't happy with the filling.

Heather said...

i've never made macaroons! they look so tasty!

Engineer Baker said...

Little feet, chewy innards, I'd call that a success! Love the idea of using tea in them!

Jennifer said...

these look delicious!!!!

I simply love the platter the macaroons are on!

Brenda said...

Very nice....the flavour combo sounds really good too

Anonymous said...

Ive never made macarons before, but I really want to master them! especially as it is so hard to buy a decent one too!

natalia said...

I think your are great !! I was so scared !!

Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella said...

Great job and I love the idea of a peach macaron. One of my favourite macarons was an apricot macaron! :)

Isabelle Lambert said...

Je n'ai pas été convaincue par la méthode proposée, c'est pour cela que j'ai utilisé la mienne.
Etk, les tiens ont des collerettes, quand j'ai suivi la méthode à la lettre, je n'en avais pas eu !
Beau travail :)

Deeba PAB said...

Yay...you got FEET!! Glad you didn't bin the chocolate. That's the way it should be. Lovely! I like the idea of your filling.Sad that it didn't work out, but looks darned delicious!

Lauren said...

Your macs are so cute! The feet look perfect =D.

Anonymous said...

Very nicely done!! Love the peach flavour.

Dharm said...

Peach Macarons! What a great idea!

Lisa said...

Who cars about perfect macarons when you have peach with a raspberry ganache?? OMG, they look and sound delicious! I think most preferred other mac recipes, so we're all with you on that one. Thank god for Tartelette..:)

Aparna Balasubramanian said...

I think your macarons look pretty. Mine didn't even have feet!:)