Le Pamplemousse Tropical

At last after almost a two week macaron hiatus, I am back on the roll. Yes I still have a bit of nagging cough at the back of my throat, but my hands and mind are itching to bake macarons. Especially since I was recently inspired by Paulette rose macaron montage but I did mine using a paint brush, Paulette does hers by airbrushing the macarons. I just added a bit of water in my colour paste and lightly brushed the sides of the macaron in one go. Turned out pretty okay, quite sell-able but perhaps I would use a finer brush. Now I had a bit of fun with filling, I did use grapefruit obviously, and I also did a buttercream filling on the outside with an orange and grapefruit curd in the centre. The thing is if I use all the curd as the filling, it's too thick and heavy, so I thought the buttercream will balance it off and it does.

Sorry the photo is pretty blurry but I couldn't wait to show the insides, the filling hasn't cooled off completely, some of the buttercream went sideways, but I could taste the curd immediately and it spreads as well. Yum, I think I'll keep this flavour if I get to sell my macs. I have been experimenting with flavours and I have been resisting doing just vanilla or just chocolate cos they sound a bit boring, but I guess at the end of the day people wants to know what exactly they're eating, and mixing too many flavours does gives a confusing look? however this is the era of abstraction and avant-garde isn't it, so why not I say. Or has it moved to new age??

So I've tackled grapefruit, using a buttercream recipe from Melanger, and the grapefruit recipe I followed Cuisine Campagne lemon curd recipe but I substitute the lemon to grapefruit. If the curd turns a bit too liquidy, add a few tablespoons of almond meal so that it becomes pasty. Try it, it works for me.