French Macarons (Daring Bakers’ Challenge)

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.

So, here’s the thing. I don’t really get the macaron craze. Cute little bakeries and pastry shops all over D.C. seem to sell them for an arm and a leg, much like the cupcake craze, and, much like cupcakes, I have no desire to pay an exorbitant price for them. And also much like cupcakes, I don’t even particularly like macarons. But the recipe sounded like a challenge, so I was in.

This was the very first thing I tackled after 3 weeks sick on the couch with swine flu and pneumonia. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t such a good plan; I was still feeling sick and had zero patience. To say I half-assed this recipe would be generous; really, at best, I quarter-assed this. All month, the Daring Bakers’ forum has been full of failed attempts… apparently, macarons are quite the tricky little beasts. And there I was, still not yet fully recovered, throwing my hands in the air and saying.. what the hell? Let’s give this a try.

All sorts of tips and tricks were shared in the forums in order to get this recipe to work. In my illness-induced annoyance state, I ignored all of them. Age your egg whites on the counter for three days, they said! I let mine sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before whipping them up. Be sure to sift your almond flour and sugar together three times so it is smooth! In my matchbox-sized kitchen, there is no room for non-essentials like sifters or mesh sieves, so not only did I not sift mine three times… I didn’t sift mine at all! Oh yes, there were LUMPS. And I narrowed my eyes and glared and told my macarons to suck it up and deal.

And deal they did. Much to my surprise, after reading about failure after failure, mine worked just fine. On the first try. With not-yet room temperature egg whites, non-sifted almond flour, and an oven that is notoriously off by quite a bit (but I don’t own an over thermometer, so I don’t know what that ‘bit’ is). MY biggest problem? Piping them out. I don’t own actual pastry bags (see reference to non-essential items for matchbox-sized kitchen) so I went with the good old snip off a corner of a ziploc bag. Nevermind that I even had circles drawn out underneath my parchment paper, I absolutely, positively, could not get that batter out in a circle… let alone in a same sized oval. Of course, this didn’t affect the quality of the cookie itself, but made sandwiching them up a bit difficult. Knowing my stomach was not yet up to par, I made these with my Husband’s tastes in mind – a simple dark chocolate ganache filling. I was thrilled that they turned out well; he was thrilled to eat them. All in all, a win-win situation!

See that ruffley edge along the base? Those are called macaron “feet” and are the defining characteristic of a macaron. Yeah, I didn’t know that either.

French Macarons

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 2 cups almond flour
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 5 egg whites, room temperature (-ish)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 200F.
2. Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl.
3. Beat the egg whites using a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
4. Sift (HA. suckers!) a third of the almond flour into the meringue and fold gently to combine. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Do not overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
5. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (or, for the truly frustrating experience, snip the end off a ziplog bag). Pipe one-inch sized mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
6. Bake the macarons for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375F. Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and back for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.

Quarantined

My extended absence can be summed up with two words: swine flu.  Those of you who follow me on Twitter caught the real-time play-by-play of my past two weeks: the 104+ fever, the aches, the chills followed by sweating like a pig (very appropriate for the swine flu), the coughing, the vomiting, the vomiting, the even more vomiting, and finally, the very slow road to recovery which started on Friday.I have spent the past two weeks stuck on the couch (aside from two Tuesday’s ago, when I had to go into lab, and this past Monday, when I spent Yom Kippur not in synagogue, but at the doctor’s office discovering that my flu turned into secondary pneumonia), too tired, worn out, and miserable to do anything aside from follow Twitter from my iPhone.  I am totally behind on e-mails, all but my very favorite blogs, the 2043 papers my PI sent to me telling me to read immediately to discuss upon my return (sorry Boss, but I have not looked at a single one), and apparently the drastic change in seasons – before I fell ill, it was warm and summery; rumor has it that it is now in the 60s and the leaves are already starting to change color.

I will be making my triumphant return to society this week (I am only feeling about 50% right now, but I am pretty sure if I don’t show up in lab meeting first thing Monday morning, my PI will drag me off the couch kicking and screaming) and slowly returning to the blogiverse.  Don’t worry, I’ll wash my hands well before leaving comments on any of your blogs.

Blackberry Buttermilk Cake

When I first saw this in Gourmet as a raspberry buttermilk cake, I made it. And it was good, but nothing that totally knocked my socks off. Quick, easy, and a perfect everyday cake. By this point, my blackberries were a week old, I was getting tired of baking with them (something I never thought would be possible), and I didn’t want anything heavy or extravagant, because I would not be bringing the resulting recipe into the lab after the previous whining over not baking enough. I decided to try the buttermilk cake again, replacing the raspberries with blackberries, for something a little lighter to have around for a weekend when Husband was visiting. And you know what? It was so much tastier. When it comes to just eating, raspberries are my favorite, hands down. But when it comes to baking, I think the verdict is in – blackberries make EVERYHING better! This cake is ridiculously simple to make, so give it a whirl! (Interesting tidbit of note: unlike the raspberries, my blackberries were so fat, they all sank straight to the bottom of the cake!). This wraps up Blackberry Extravaganza week - I hope you enjoyed it and found a recipe or two to add to your collections!

Blackberry Buttermilk Cake
adapted from Gourmet June 2009

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
• 2/3 cup plus 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup fresh blackberries

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Beat together butter and 2/3 cup sugar at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in vanilla and egg.
3. At low speed, mix in flour and buttermilk until just combined. Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top. Scatter blackberries over top and sprinkle with remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar.
4. Bake until cake is golden and a wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool an additional 10 to 15 minutes more.

all the blackberries hiding on the bottom of the cake

Blackberry Peach Galette

If there is one thing you make from my Blackberry Extravaganza week, make this. Really. Make this. Now. It was amazing. A-MA-ZING. It was so amazing, in fact, that it apparently turned one particular labmate into a greedy monster who stormed up to me and verbally berated me for not bringing in more, droning on and on about how it was so unfair that I didn’t consider the number of people in the lab and that some people took larger slices and not everyone would get a “big enough” slice and it just wasn’t fair next time, could I just get my act together and bring in MORE? I just sort of sat there with my jaw hanging open, because after I brought in blackberry pie bars, berry oatmeal crumble bars, blackberry scones, and then a blackberry peach galette, I get yelled at for not baking ENOUGH? Sorry, but my Ph.D. stipend is very small, and it does not pay for me to provide your breakfast buffet! I suspect it will be a very long time before I bake for the lab again – isn’t it a shame when one rotten apple spoils everything for the whole bunch?

I really love galettes so much more than pies – I’m not sure why, but the whole rustic look really appeals to me. Plus, I love that they are filled with fruit slices rather than a soupy fruit filling and the crust tends to be thicker, so galettes can be picked up and eaten with your hands, rather than requiring a fork and a plate (perfect for consumption during lab meetings). I went with blackberry and peach because I picked both at the farm, and the flavors complimented each other together perfectly. Obviously, you can use any fruit in a galette, but I loved these together so much I would be hesitant to change it up next time; personally, I can’t imagine another combination that I would personally enjoy more!

Blackberry Peach Galette
adapted from Our Best Bites

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 11 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons ice water
• 3 large, ripe peaches, pitted and sliced
• 1 cup blackberries
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 1/2 tablespoons butter

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375F.
2. Add flour and salt to a medium bowl. Cut cold butter into small chunks and throw on top of flour. Cut the butter into the flour using a pastry blender under mixture resembles small crumbs the size of peas. Add ice water one tablespoon at a time while stirring the dough mixture with a fork. Bring dough together and put into a ball. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate.
3. Sprinkle flour and sugar over fruit. Stir.
4. Roll out pastry dough on a floured surface to at least 12” in diameter. There will be enough dough for one large and one small galette. Transfer dough to baking sheet.
5. Dump fruit mixture in the middle of dough and dot with 1 –2 tablespoons butter.
6. Pull up edges of dough and pleat. Dip fingers in water and moisten between the pleats to seal. Brush dough with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar.
7. Bake for 50-60 minutes. When done, the fruit will be bubbling and the crust will be golden brown in color. Remove from the oven and cool for 10-15 minutes on a wire rack. Eat all for yourself and do not share because it is just too delicious.

Blackberry Scones

Next up in the blackberry baking adventures came some blackberry scones. I wasn’t quite sure how these would turn out, since there aren’t a plethora of blackberry scone recipes out there, the way there are for say, cranberry scones. I thought that perhaps there is a reason for that – maybe the blackberries are just too juicy to work in a scone. When I mixed the dough, it came out SO thick and SO heavy that I realized there was just no possible way that I was ever going to be able to stretch the dough out and cut it into circles. I’m not sure what exactly went wrong – maybe the blackberries were just too much – but boy oh boy was it dense. Rather than just give up, I decided to just squash all the dough into my springform pan and pop it in the oven and see what happened. Lo and behold, after baking for quite a while – scones! These were especially tasty with the blackberry jam that already happened to be be leftover in the lab from a previous scone smorgasbord brought in by our PI!

Blackberry Scones
adapted from America’s Test Kitchen

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 5 tablespoons chilled, unsalted butter, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
• 3/4 cups blackberries
• 1 cup heavy cream

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425F.
2. Add flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse six times. Distribute butter over dry ingredients. Cover and pulse 12 times, each pulse lasting 1 second. Add blackberries and pulse one more time.
3. Transfer dough to a large bowl and stir in cream with a rubber spatula until dough begins to form, about 30 seconds.
4. Transfer dough to countertop and knead by hand until it just comes together in a rough, sticky ball.
5. Press dough into a 9-inch springform pan, scoring the dough into 8 wedges with a knife.
6. Bake dough in springform pan until tops are light brown and dough is cooked through, 20 to 25 minutes. Cut through immediately before cooling, then cool on wire rack for at least 10 minutes before serving.