Sunday Baking - Macarons, those delicious little enigmas. I've got some tips here to demystify their process

Macarons it turns out are not that hard! You just need to follow a few simple methodical steps to achieve a convincingly professional result. I've made this recipe at least 3 times now and always a consistent bake, so feel free to give it a go ♥

Ingredients:

3 Egg whites (always at room temp - never from the fridge)
35gms Caster sugar
Sift together: 200gms Icing sugar +
110gms Ground Almonds
Few drops of food coloring (optional)

Method:

Beat egg whites in a stand mixer until foamy then while beating, gradually add caster sugar until firm peaks form. You're pouring slowly so as to dissolve the sugar. Optional: In a food processor blend your ground almond and icing sugar to a fine powder, almond meal often has bigger chunks of almond in. If you omit this step you may have some chunks of almond.
Fold in your Sifted almond and icing sugar (and food coloring if you like) until combined, about 30 turns. The batter should fall off the spatula in blobs and hold its shape in the bowl for approximately 30 seconds before melting in.
Spoon into a piping bag and pipe out rounds onto parchment/silicone mat lined baking trays and leave out to set - I get my fan out and fan them for half an hour. This stage is important as you want the skin to form on the outside so that when you bake you get the little "foot" along the bottom.
Bake in pre-heated oven at 140 Celsius for approximately* 10-20 minutes rotating the tray halfway through. 

*time really means NOTHING to macarons, what you need is for them to lift off the parchment paper WITHOUT sticking. Depending on your oven (we have a fan forced oven) you're going to want to watch these, they shouldn't brown or color. Do not remove from the oven until they lift off their parchment.

Now to ICE/frost! The best part!

Ganache:


For The Green:
100gms White Chocolate (always eating, never cooking!*)
1/2 Cup Heavy Cream
Zest of half a Lime

For the Pink:
100gms Dark chocolate (eating please)
1/2 cup heavy cream
tablespoon Raspberry Jam

Heat cream until scalding. Pour over chocolate and sit aside for a few minutes. Add flavouring and stir until smooth and shiny. Refrigerate until the consistency you desire then sandwich matched up cookies together.
*To make it stable while melting and so you don't have to temper Cooking chocolate doesn't contain ANY cocoa butter - that special fat that gives chocolate that melty, silky mouth feel without sticking to the roof of your mouth. Cooking chocolate is gross, don't go there

Have you ever made macarons?
Do you have any further tips I may have forgotten?
Happy baking everyone.

♥ Paula Shoe Fiend.

Sunday baking - Mini lemon cheesecakes with shortbread cream base - easiest cheesecake recipe everrrr

You know when you read a cheesecake recipe and you're just like, that sounds HARRD. There's so much cream cheese in it, there's maybe mascarpone or ricotta as well, you've got to beat it, cook it in a water bath, TOO HARD!

Well I have the perfect lazy cheesecake for you. Because it's cooked in mini silicon molds it cooks quickly, evenly and won't crack! You can pick them up so cheap, I've seen them at Kmart for $2, have a look online or down your local home ware store.

Feel free to change up the flavours to what ever you like, as long as the basic batter stays the same and you make your base the consistency of wet sand, you'll be right. I've made this 3 times now, one mint version, one black forest version and this one so they're TRIPLE TESTED.

Ingredients:

Base: 250 grams biscuits/cookies, crushed (I used shortbread creams -see note)

40 - 60* grams butter, melted

Zest of 1 lemon

Filling: 250 grams Cream Cheese at room temp ( I like the block of Philadelphia)

1 egg

1 Tablespoon yogurt

30 grams sugar#

1/4 cup lemon curd

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 175 Celsius. spray your silicon molds with oil spray.

Combine melted butter, biscuit/cookie crumbs and zest, mix to the consistency of wet sand, you want it to be able to press into the base of your liners without crumbling too much. Press into your silicon liners (crumb should fill about 1/4 to 1/3 of your liners.

Beat cream cheese and egg together just until smooth, if you over beat your cheesecakes can crack. Stir through yogurt, sugar and lemon curd (or whatever jam/topping/ingredient your'e using) Dollop cheesecake mix onto your biscuit bases. Pop into your heated oven and bake 20-30 mins until they're puffing up (they will calm back down as they cool)

That's IT! I told you it was easy. These are so yummy by themselves but you could further jazz them up with ice cream or melted chocolate?

A super yummy lemon cheesecake I tried at Brooklyn eatery kind of inspired this recipe.

NOTE: You really have no limits here. You could try mint biscuits with a little peppermint essence in the filling. Or Oreo cookie base with Oreo's and vanilla in the filling. What about choc cream biscuits with black cherry filling?

*If you're using a cream filled cookie like Oreo's you will need less butter, just be aware of the consistency as your'e mixing. You can always add, you can never take away.

#depending on what filling you're using you may want to go easy on added sugar. Have a little taste and see how much/little you need.

Do you think you will try this recipe? I definitely recommend you do, knowing as I do how EASY IT IS.

Happy Baking everyone.

♥ Paula Shoe Fiend.