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.

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).

A Tongue-in-Cheek

Le Marron et Thé Vert Matcha a tribute to Pierre Hermé who created the original flavors.

These are photos collages from my trip to Paris, from the window display of Bon Marché department store to Marithé François Girbaud concept store somewhere in the right bank if I remember vaguely. It looks like a wall that's been vandalised by graffiti but still looks very cool with all the clashes of crazy colors. Another image is from le jardin du luxembourg, the prettiest public garden I have been in my life! and I saw that lady painting that sculpture and I was like oh my goodness I have to take a picture of that! Paris is so abundant with the spirit of art of la liberté.
Above is PH original Chestnut Matcha macaron with it's signature green tea paste centre. Since I haven't tried it (but will soon hopefully in September) I don't know exactly what it's made of, whether it's buttercream or ganache based. It's at times like this I wished I have his sell-out-out-of-production Macaron recipe book. His original is light-brown to complement the chestnut flavor, he then cut squares of matcha paste to add onto the half macaron shells and then piped the chestnut filling on top of it.


Mine on the other hand is green, but I like the green better and it's different that his. I used chestnut powder and milk to make the paste and combined the cream and white chocolate to make the ganache. The matcha paste centre is made from the chestnut paste combined with matcha powder. The contrast is very subtle between the matcha green and the chestnut brown filling. But taste-wise is a success because the chestnut flavor is pretty strong and the surprise matcha centre leaves a sorta oriental flavor and the sweet is an after-taste delight.

The matcha squares. Don't hesitate to ask me for recipes, it really depends on my mood if I want to write recipes then I'll write them...but sometimes I really can't be bothered. Sorry, but do ask me if any of you would like any of the recipes of the macarons posted here :)