Kitty Macarons

A while back, my daughter came home from school asking for my help with her homework.  Her assignment was to prepare a food item, package it and advertise it to its best advantage. Hmm .... now what shall we prepare then? Cookies? Cupcakes? Brownies? ......  Ahhh .... Yes! Macarons!! That should be exciting! And to make our product more attractive we decided to make kitty macarons. Aren't they just adorable?

Colourful and cute kitty macarons

Meow meow meow ....

All packaged up with advertisement and ready to sell!

We had a busy but fun-filled weekend preparing the macarons and drawing cute kitty faces. Now why can't homework be this fun all the time?


Kitty Macarons
(Basic Macaron Recipe adapted from Macaron Fetish)

Yield about 24 macaron shells (12 filled macarons)

Macaron Shells
1 room temperatured egg white(39-40g)
50g icing sugar
30g ground almond
30g castor sugar
Drops of food colouring

Method:
1. Put ground almond and icing sugar in a food processor or a small blender. Blend them finely.

2. Sift the blended mixture and set aside.

3. With an electric beater, Beat the egg white, start from low speed and increase slowly to maximum speed. Beat until frothy (you will see lots of fine bubbles)

4. Now it's the time to add in the castor sugar, add half of the sugar, continue to beat in maximum speed for around 2 minutes, add in the other half, continue until you get very stiff peak.

5. Mix the dry ingredients into the eggwhites. This process is called Macaronage. Start folding with a rubber spatula. Add in drops of food colouring but not too much as it will cause the mixture to become too runny. When you get a smooth shiny mixture, stop folding, lift the mixture with spatula, if the mixture falls back slowly in the bowl means you're good to go. You could also check if the lines formed from the liften mixture, they should slowly disappear in within 30 seconds. At this stage you're good to go. Do not over fold, it will be too liquid and becoming very hard to pipe.

6. Line the baking tray with the parchment paper.

7. Fill your piping bag , pipe your macaron (about 2 cm diameter) it should spread a bit as it settles. The point should slowly disappear if the mixture is the right consistency.
If not you could hit the bottom of the tray to smooth the point out)

8. To make kitty macaron, I just use a toothpick to pull the batter slightly upwards to form two pointy ears.

9. Let your macaron sits for about 30minutes. This will depand on the humity in your house and the day. Try touching the macaron softly, after 30mins. it should not stick to your hand.

10. Heat your oven to 150 C on the (heating on the top only). When the oven is ready, put your macaron at the very bottom shelf. Bake for 12 minutes, check them in the mid time of 6 minutes, the feets should already start forming. Turn the baking tray to the opposite direction to allow even baking. When the 6 mins is up, change the heating setting of your oven to Bottom only. This will help cooking the macaron and rise the feet more. Bake for another 6 minutes. You can test if the macaron is cook, touch softly on the shell and when the macaron doesn't slide on the feet, it's cooked. if it's not add another 1 mins each time and check.

11. Let the macaron cool down before removing them. You could wet your working area and slide the baking sheet on it to speed up the cooling process, but do not let it sit there too long, if not the macarons will become soggy. Other wise you can leave them cool at room temperature and remove them.

12. To make kitty faces, use a toothpick to dip into black food colouring and draw on the macarons.


White Chocolate Ganache Filling
50g white chocolate
25ml fresh cream

1. Warm the cream over the stove, until it boil very slightly.

2. Remove the cream from heat, Add white chocolate, mix until the chocolate is melted completely and a smooth texture is obtain.

3. Refrigerate until firm and spread between the macaron shells.


Have fun and enjoy!