Merry Christmas! Lady Mac is arriving a bit late...

Merry Christmas...I hope this year has been a blessing for all of you. It sure is for me.. :)

Sunday Brunch @ Potato Head

Sunday sell-out at Potato Head, 29 November 2009. Do you like the display???????

*N*pple Blossoms*

For Sunday 29 November at Potato Head Bistro & Bar in Jakarta, Indonesia.
www.ptthead.com
RSV 021 5797 3322

Flavors:
Star of the Day *Nipple Blossom*: jasmine

Hazelnut Rose
Lavender white chocolate
Black Sesame dark chocolate
Chestnut
Mint Chocolate

Macaron Overdose 23.11.09

Yes I overdosed on macarons this morning...a result of crazy baking from 4am-6am. But I loved it!

Flavors:
Hazelnut-rose (pink)
Chestnut-dark chocolate (yellow 1)
Black sesame (yellow 2)
Pineapple w kafir leaves (aqua-violet)
Black sesame - jasmine (black dots)

POTATO HEAD

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Potato Head Bistro & Bar
Pacific Place Mall.

RSV 021 5797 3322

Sesame Noir et Jasmine Blanc Macaron

Macaron Paradis

My first day off all for myself! and what did I decided to do..well well well of course I need to start baking again after a two week hiatus. I actually felt a bit pessimistic cos lately I haven't been making great macarons like I did when I was in Melbourne. I'm sure it's the oven's fault, nothing to do with the local eggs, almonds or sugar but it could all been an excuse. That and also my mental state of mind has been running at 100mph lately...adjusting to a demanding job that's fast pace and requires my a lot of street smart..I'm sure that's what my dad would say. But today I kinda get the whole trick adjusting to my oven and producing good-enough macarons, texture wise but many practices goes a long way. Not to mention I have a weeding order for 27th November for 250 macarons, yellow and peach is her theme colour so I'll do a lemon curd/buttercream and a peach ganache.

Back to my job...well it's PR or Public Relations, it's definitely not that hard...but it's not an easy job too...I swore to myself I would never work in PR, but I swore many things and ended up doing them and been pretty good so I'll see how it goes. Plus I'm broke after my three months trip to Paris and I kinda need any job to get me started. I work in my brother's restaurant here in Jakarta, called Potato Head, it's fun, cool and it's a great office, I have a little corner where I sit and sometimes the smoke gets to me so I move outside. I hope this is not turning into a diary...

Anyway back to macaron business...I'm going to have my first macaron article in a local magazine called AMICA, an Italian magazine now available in Indonesia as a franchise. Can't wait to get the new edition and will post it soon here. Alrite I've got a few dvds to end the night so goodnight and keep it real y'all!

xoxo
lady macaron

Flower Power Macaron

When you master your oven, there is no greater joy in baking macarons, now I can make it fat with a slight crunchy shells (last longer in Jakarta's humid and hot weather) or slightly flatter (the way it's suppose to be). I honestly prefer them to be authentic that is flatter, with flittery feet that doesn't raise up so gigantically. However after taking them out from the fridge they get very soft easily and if I sell them without a cold case, then I'm afraid they'll deformed way too fast. Today though I made really fat macarons, eventhough they look prettier with more hummphf, they're way too crunchy. I still prefer flatter versions.

But hey the look great against the flowery background. Today I made lavender and rose macarons. The passionfruit-chocolate macs were made a few days ago. I couldn't believe what I found today at Kem Chicks, a supermarket in Kemang that sells a lot products from overseas, yep those Monin flavoured syrup, they even have...(shock shock!) chestnut matcha green tea flavoured syrup!!! how Pierre Hermé is that! Unbelievable what products they carry in this tiny totally-underated Jakarta. Even Melbourne does not have that! With a price tag of Rp.147,000, I thought I'll try a few bottles and see how really good they are. So what flavour do I need desperately...umm Rose and Lavender!

I made a Pâte á Bombe Recipe using the leftover egg yolks. It is a french buttercream that takes a bit too long to make, and tasted well...like normal cream, so next time I'm going to just use a ganache based filling with added tpt (tant pour tant, almond and icing sugar mixture). Happy that my oven is working a-ok! Tomorrow I'm starting a new job as PR for Potato Head restaurant...which happens to be owned by my brother and his partners. So good luck to me and I hope I can spread the macaron words!

le macaron de la nature étrange

The pink painting above is by a very famous almost celebrity painter in the Philipines. His name is Ronald Ventura and his is very talented indeed. He does a lot of etching using black pencils and over the top sculptures as well. That particular pink number sold for US $21,000 last night! Oh goodie oh

My first macaron baking outside of Melbourne did yield a mediocre result, being a perfectionist, I was determined to find a way to break into my oven again (meaning adjusting to a new home oven for the third time in three months). After the fourth batch the macarons turned out pretty good, frilly feet, top shells without the slight burnt and easy to peel bottoms that were cooked almost-perfect. The only downside is that they were still flat compare to my macs I baked in Melbourne chilly weather. Perhaps it was because I didn't refrigerate my egg whites for a week as I was in a hurry to bake 60 macarons for an exhibition at my brother's galerie and just decided that morning that I was going to whip up some hideous magic that somehow I was ready to conquer my oven!

Perhaps from the photos you might think that they look fat and happy macs, but they were still not above my level of satisfaction and although I got rave reviews from everyone, I was sceptical. And not to mention the hideous colours (oops I used the word 'hideous' again)! Surprisingly and well obviously the black sesame were the all time favourite (green) with a tint of green tea. The pink white choc with strawberry flavour using my Lindt white couverture chocs were indeed very nice, a bit sweet but I would definitely used that pink chocolate again. The brown ones were cappuccino caramel and I added tant pour tant (almond and icing sugar mixture) to stabilize the texture. Those were all gone too at the end of the night cos everyone said they loved the chewiness from the almond and caramel bite.

Was having nervous tensions on how to serve my macs, and was searching around my home to see what I could use to create a bit of difference and voila! I nicked my brother's wooden cabinet's shelves, whip them clean and put some tissue for le macaron de la nature étrange. The Strange Nature Macaron...

Marmalade & Prune Macaron

Just the way grandma likes it, yup marmalade on toast and prunes for snacks are probably the two most favourite staple food of my late grandma who lives in Vancouver and probably your grandma too! Wait a second, I know my mom loves both snacks so it would go in favour for a lot of mothers too. So why not put the two together? This is how my mom describes it,

"So while you're eating the macaron, I can taste the bits of prunes inside and some people eat prunes for medicinal purposes so in a way you know their healthy for you. And the delicateness of the chocolate gives it just the perfect texture for the prune filling. There was this fresh feeling from the marmalade, a bit of bitterness, naturally, it was just divine!"

Why did I choose hot pink shells? I don't know, perhaps if I go dark purple it would scare off people from eating prunes, and deep down I should've gone for dark orange or pink with a tint of orange. Oh well, I hope a lot of you gets to enjoy my macarons soon.

List of Flavours Fall 09

Here are the macaron flavours for Fall 09, available in November through to December. Flavours are updated every couple of month so do visit us soon!
xoxo Lady Mac

I've added new flavours such as: black sesame with jasmine, peach ganache, coffee caramel, lemon buttercream, rose and lavender.
Pistachio is currently unavailable from November to December.

Price:
Each: Rp. 12 000
For orders more than 200++ please email me at emmelyn_g@hotmail.com
Please notify me two weeks in advance for a 50+ orders.

Thank you.
email: emmelyn_g@hotmail.com
phone: +628118881133

Thursday Macaron Bake

Today I found the almost-perfect macaron recipe after trialling the first recipe in the Pierre Hermé Macaron book which I received express from Paris! Le Mogador is a brightly yellow macarons sprinkled with chocolate powder filled with passionfruit infused in dark chocolate ganache. Monsieur Mogador as I prefer it to be a masculine  has many followers around the world in various patisseries, I have seen this often witty flavour in Lindt cafe, in various macarons bakeries in New York, in Sydney and also other noted macaron establishments in Paris. And I say why not, it proved to be a popular signature flavour  and  who would've thought of mixing passionfruit and chocolate. The mogador is filled with thick dark chocolate mix with fresh passionfruit syrup. Even after the first bite, the passionfruit sweet sour taste is very strong.

Though I have not made the filling yet, the shells is as fat and happy as it could be. What amazes me is that I have been following the almost exact macaron recipe with italian method yet a slight difference in the process from the book changes everything. I learned from my macaron class and from another popular bloggist and countless of other web recipes with italian method to mix the first half of the egg whites with the tant pour tant (almond powder and icing sugar mixture) first to make a paste, then proceed to whip the other egg whites with the cooked sugar. However PH showed in his book that he only poured the egg whites to the tpt and left it there until the italian meringue is ready. Everything is folded together at the same time and that process I believe is essential in developing a high feet and fat shells. At the end of it, it does makes sense because when you fold the tpt with the egg white first to make a paste, it sort of deflate the airyness of the tpt and you are folding the batter twice instead of in one go.

I might need to post a mini recipe soon, it's a great feeling when you've achieve something pretty good and it's also great to share it with others and learn that they've succeeded too! Sooon readers :)

Mangez-les! (les macarons bien sûr)

Yes you heard me right, go and eat those macarons! mangez-les! and enjoy the every bit of sweet endorphins that are release from thy brain. But my word of advise to watch that waist from expanding: "I always stop when I have the urge to eat some more" and never ever eat more than one macaron at one sitting time, but then you won't be able to taste the rest of the flavours???!! sure you can, I know it sorta deflate the whole purpose of eating a macaron, but I cut them in tiny bits and let everyone guess what the flavours are. Share them with your friends, family and if you have a ravenous dog 24/7 you can always just give it a tiny weeny crust (like a microscopic size).

Excited super excited I received my book parcel from Paris this morning, I knew it was going to be today. It was like a dream to get the Pierre Hermé macaron book, and it does feel like a gift from God, I know I'm over-exaggerating but I seriously think that any macaron fanatics out there who wants to perfect their baking skills need to get this book pronto. Yes it is in French but google has a really good french-translation and it'll give out as many programs that does it.

So how good is the book? Well the PH macaron recipes are divided into five specific categories, les classiques like rose, dark chocolate, pistachio and caramel then les fetish, basically the sexy mysterious flavours with more than one ingredient combination like the famous ispahan with lychee, rose and raspberry in the ganache. Peach, apricot and safron is also included. Les signatures is his signature styles, the flavours he offer continuously in his macaron boutiques and ones that he created from his genius brain. Les sur mesure is the made-to-measure if we're speaking in the fashion tongue, they're certainly not for everyone like the ketchup flavour David Lebovitz once made, and they are sort of a tribute (or a mock) for famous icons or something/someone, like the macaron au jasmin for Jean Patou, the famous french designer/perfumerie. Quite an entertaining read for someone with barely any french syllabus left in her, since there are some words that I can still assimilate and yes they are funny.

The last of the chapter is les exceptions and it does require a certain amount of $$$ to start with since the ingredients list requires a certain foie gras, caviar, balsamic and truffle but they're great to impress a certain...I don't know president?supermodel?designer?

Well I'm off to a great read tonight and will definitely start testing these recipes soon.

Pink October Macaron

So good news everybody! I got my PH MACARON book that was previously sold out and out of print early this year and nOOOWWW it's available again through amazon.fr. I was so excited I had to press my enter button a few times, instead of being disponible it was en stock! hurrayyy and on top of that I'll be getting it express by the end of the week (counting my days!!).

Apparently it was just re-printed and came out on the 10th September and I am pretty sure by a few weeks, this book will be out-of-print again. So hurry up macaron afficianados and fans alike, go get it! it was seriously cheap for 28.40EUR plus delivery.

On other news, I did another Ladurée tasting, this time, pistachio, caramel with salted butter (caramel au beurre sounds so much better doesn't it?) and lime (which is cédrat in french and only available in summer). Pistachio has very crunchy pistachio nuts and not at all sweet which is good, PH pistachio is smooth and with a ganache based whereas Ladurée's is buttercream based. I would go with Ladurée's if I to pick one between a pistachio flavour but PH's pistachio with cherry centre is fun to eat!

I've tasted Ladurée's caramel au beurre before and I fell in love. Just perfect saltiness with none of the burnt sugar taste as caramel do often gives.

Lime surprisingly is not that tangy as lemon but I love the ganache cos it has a slight coconut taste, what is with all these hidden coconut in french macaron??? but don't take my word on that coconut cos I still have lots of research to do. Love the disco lime colour though, it's so retro and gosh can't believe I'm eating that!

What I did to my Ladurée box (I put all my macaron colours in there and the dust powder too!)

Macaron gift box

So partly it was boredom and the other half I was anxious to do a macaron box. I know I know...doesn't she has anything better to do? well I love macaron, and what better thing than to do a happy macaron box! I got my inspiration from Sydney over the weekend, we went to this cute-retro-art gallery/store at Darlinghurst and the owner, Gary McEwan is a proud gay artist and he does so by exhibiting a lot of well I'm sure you know what I mean. Surprise-surprise, he used to have a shop at Acland St, St Kilda for 20 years! but moved to Sydney after all the bad chain stores capitalises good ol' Acland.

I actually got the box cover/card from that store and I just did my own drawings inside. It's meant to be a pop-out kinda card but yeah I was rushing it towards the end. Good news to come towards the end of next week about my macarons coming out into the Melbourne stratosphere! It's gonna be BIG and I'm still keeping it as a secret (I hope so, though a few people already know so by my twittering) but will post details as soon as it's confirmed! Will do more of these cards when I have the time.... :) happy macaron day!

My Dog Max

Max in technocolour by Elly

Eat Ladurée Macaron

Welcome to another round of macaron tasting from Paris, this time from none other than Ladurée. When I was in Paris I did went to Ladurée a handful of times but I've only tasted vanilla, caramel, chocolate and coffee so far, so...here we go, on an empty stomach with a cup of afternoon coffee.

Citron. A hard recipe to tackle since lemon filling to me visually should be like a yellow curd, but Ladurée decided on a lemon flavoured ganache instead and surely they want to create a strong contrast between the artificial yellow and white. Yes the lemon-tang is there, but so is the white-chocolate flavour (and somehow Ladurée's ganache has a slight coconut after-taste). I can feel shreds of either coconut or perhaps almond meal. Not particularly a favourite and I would avoid ordering this one.

Menthe Glaciale is mint. Again a mint flavoured ganache, but since I love mint candy and anything minty, this is a nice pair up. Great striking colour and definitely an attraction in itself.

Cassis violette is blackcurrant. Definitely sweeter and more bitter than raspberry or strawberry which gives sourness. Now it is not made purely of blackcurrant paste or jam since the texture is very dense and thick, so it is either mix with white chocolate or almond meal. I think it's both since there are hard granules in there, I could feel it between my teeth, and it's not the seeds I'm sure. I love this flavour, it's refreshing.

Ladurée l'eglisse or licorice flavour is veryyyy subtle, but beautifully combined with the ganache and I thought that it has slight coconut taste. Yes Aaron from a life worth eating is correct, this particular flavour is very special, it leaves a minty licorice after-taste and will also be in my flavour book. I felt like eating a charcoal though with the black colour, it was quite intimidating colour. Well done to this one!

With 50odd numbers left of macarons in my freezer, I am taking my time and definitely watching my waist too! All in moderation and you have to enjoy it.

A Swirl of Colour

I am going ga-ga over this macaron clip! Previously from paris breakfast blog, I was curious to know how they create the trio of colours in one macaron. Wow. Crazy Cool big time!

Visit their website at http://www.fresson-chocolatier-patissier.fr

image 1 from amabilia.com
image 2 from blog-europeauto.com

Mini Recipe

Welcome to Mini Recipe by Lady Macaron which will be posted very very soon.
For now click here for great recipe by Duncan from Syrup and Tang.com using Italian Method which I highly recommend for anyone who has tried baking them and failed or wants a better recipe that yields strong and glowing shells.

Pierre Hermé eat macaron

This afternoon, like most other days, we had our coffee and macaron break. This time though we decided to trial the macarons from Paris, notably from Pierre Hermé. Today's flavours are Pistache et Framboise, Menthe Fraiche and Rose. I had the pistachio and raspberry first, the pistachio flavour is definitely subtle, actually reminds me of green-coconut taste like this indonesian cake I used to eat when I was growing up (pandan-cake). Even my mom said so. The raspberry paste centre is not as sour as I would have thought, pretty sweet and again subtle (it could've have been a strawberry or cherry flavour-like). It blends well with the creamy pistachio, overall PH macarons are definitely not as 'strong' flavour as the blogs and comments in the web says.

Rose: quite strong rose-aroma in the first bite, a definite white chocolate based-ganache and somehow my sister tasted lychee in there. But I am still unsure, next tasting to confirm. Again it is a light macaron in term of flavour, good I think.

Menthe Fraiche: Mint creamy white-chocolate based again in the filling and in the shells. Fresh minty flavour meaning they use real mint leafs I'm sure. Mint leafs boiled in the cream and poured over the white chocolates (similar technique when I was learning how to make mint chocolate macarons with professional chef). Overal the cream sort of took over the mint at the final after-taste. It's pretty Comme Ci, Comme Ça (so-so).

Another 'shock-surprise' for me, his macarons are also très fragile when I cupped it with my fingers on the way to my mouth, it breaks easily, but slightly harder than Ladurée. This is why I am constantly irritated when people say that "They are not as hard, and domed-like like the ones I saw at Laurent, Brown's and Lindt" well that's because they never went to Paris and taste french macarons before and they certaintly don't use as much almond powder as they should. They are very fragile cookies, not wait 'cookies' is not a great enough description, they are 'fragile creatures' that needs special attention and care. et voilà, a quick lesson on macarons and how they are supposed to be (physically, texture-ly, flavour-wise and handled).