What’s up Wasabi?!

Tags

candied grapefruit, dessert, food, ganache, gluten free, lime, macarons, Pierre hermes, sweet, wasabi, white chocolate, yum

I’ve been dreaming (fantasizing?) about the Pierre Hermes wasabi macarons.  You know a funny thing?  All my obsession with Pierre Hermes and I’ve never even tasted his pastries?!  It’s all on reputation…in fact, it’s all on the Ispahan flavor combination.  He makes a rather well-known macaron called the Ispahan which uses rosewater, lychee and rasperries.  You can see my attempt to re-create them here.   When I heard he had a macaron with wasabi my tastebuds almost jumped out of my head!  I had to find the recipe and try them.  Well I found it (1) on Zen Can Cook. Of course it calls for something exotic, Yuzu juice, what is that anyway?

Yuzu

I am going to submit these to Aspiring Bakers #17 March Macaron Madness (March 2012). I can’t wait to see other submissions!Another variety of citrus?  I must find it.  Well that is easier said than done. I went to a local gigantic Asian market and…nothing, no one knew what I was talking about.  Hmmm.  there is another bigger Asian market in downtown Seattle but I wasn’t going to go there today.  The recipe said you could substitute lime.  That’s what I substituted in the last Hermes recipe I made! That time it called for Buddha Hand citrus.  What’s with all the exotic citrus that can be substituted by a lowly lime?!   On to the recipe, oh and fair warning it takes at least two days unless you have candied grapefruit on hand.

I try not to make a full recipe unless I know I like something and I’ve found with some of these recipes that have been converted from commercial scale that they make too much.  So this is a half recipe that follows and I used my own favorite macaron recipe instead of making the Italian merengue that the Hermes recipe called for.  I’ve never made them that way and it just seems overly complicated.

Candied grapefruit

• 1 grapefruit
• 1/2 liter of water
• 235 g of sugar
• 1/2 vanilla bean
• 1/2 star anise
• 5 peppercorns (it called for Sarawak, I used Tellicherry, I’m sure any black peppercorn would work)
• Oh and 2 Tb of lemon juice which I, of course, forgot.

You will need the peel of the grapefruit sliced into about 1 inch wide pieces including some of the fruit.  Usually you only use the peel.  Put in a saucepan and cover with cold water, bring to a boil and boil for 2 minutes.  Drain, rinse in cold water,  cover with water, bring to a boil and boil for 2 minutes,  repeat 2 more times.  If you taste the peel along the way it will go from unbearably bitter to much milder.

When you’re done with that part put the 1/2 liter of water, the sugar and the spice (oh and lemon juice, don’t forget that!) in a saucepan and bring to a boil.  Once it’s boiling add the peels and low simmer with the lid propped open for 1 & 1/2 hours. You will know they’re done when they look translucent. Let them sit in the syrup overnight.  In the morning take them out of the syrup and let them dry on a wire rack.  I used the syrup on pancakes with yogurt, quite yum!

To use in the macaron, slice the peels into small chunks.

They look like little jewels.

If you have any leftover you can store them in the syrup for about 3 weeks, or cover them in sugar and they keep for about 3 days, or dip in chocolate and eat!Now we make macarons.  Use whatever recipe you usually use.  Bravetart has a great recipe and lots of tips on how to make them come out right.  For this macaron you need to grind up some pistachios and sprinkle on top of the macarons before baking.

Pierre Hermes uses titanium oxide to make his macarons white! Very strange, if you look it up on Wikipedia it’s used for many things including sunscreen and making the white lines on tennis courts. Not sure if I want that in my food and I didn’t have any of it anyway. I decided not to add any food coloring and leave these natural.   Now for the wasabi part!  Again, I didn’t make a full recipe only half and it was more than enough for the amount of macarons I made, probably about 60 finished (2 pieces per macaron).  I can’t really count them since we didn’t track how many we ate along the way!  Ugg, if I’m honest, we probably ate about 20.

White Chocolate, Wasabi, Lime Ganache

• 187 g white chocolate
• 150 g heavy cream
• 20-25 g lime juice
• 10 g wasabi (I was hoping for fresh but couldn’t find it. I’ve heard the stuff you get in tubes isn’t even real wasabi but who knows!)

Make the ganache by melting the white chocolate over a simmering pan of water (bain marie), heat the cream in a pan to a near simmer, warm the lime juice in the microwave. Once the white chocolate is melted add in half the cream and stir well, then add in the other half and the lime juice, stir some more. Add in the wasabi and make sure it’s really well combined.  Cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge to cool.

My macaron shells did not turn out as well as other times, I think I may have overmixed just a bit.  You learn each time.   Now it’s time to assemble the macarons!  I put a layer of the ganache and about 4 chunks of the candied grapefruit between two of the macarons and tasted….what a strange, exotic, almost exciting combination!  You are hit with the wasabi first but it’s not enough to burn or anything, then comes the citrus and the chewy crisp of the macaron!  Jason says he likes these the best of all I’ve made.  I liked these but my favorite is still the rosewater lychee.

I think I will try one more wasabi flavored dessert….chocolate, wasabi, ginger cake!   We’ll see.

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A bitter-sweet trip to Paris

Tags

dessert, food, gluten free, Ispahan, Lychee, macaron, Paris, Pierre Herme, rose water, sweet

My sister lived in Paris not so long ago. 2001 to be exact. We (me, my ex and his daughter) went to visit her and we arrived on 9/10. The next morning she burst into the room as we slept, jet lagged and yelled something about terrorists attacking New York. She had been walking past a bar and saw a plane go into one of the twin towers. She thought it was a movie until she kept seeing it on the tv screens of restaurant, after bar, after restaurant and realized it was real. It was such a strange trip. Wonderful to see her, wonderful to be in Paris and surreal to see the images of 9/11 from such distance and from a foreign point of view. I don’t think I’ve ever truly grapsed what went on at home, what those initial nationwide feelings were. We got the European view. We went to a vigil in France where people were sad and supportive of America. Things changed later. If you live in the US you probably remember the attempt to use “Freedom Fries” instead of “French Fries”. I don’t think the US will ever be the same as it was before that day.

But this story has a sweet side too. Paris was where I discovered Macarons!  Not macaroons the equally delicious coconut cookie. There’s a bakery by my mothers that makes those amazing coconut macaroons, someday I will have to try to figure out what their secret is. But today is not that day.

Parisian Macarons

I’m sure you may have noticed them at a bakery near you lately? There seems to be an awareness of them recently. If you have not tried one you really must. They are crisp and yet chewy, sweet and filled with a creamy center usually. An exotic, elegant Oreo if you will.  I adore them. I also had forgotten about them since that trip. Until I saw a book while browsing my local Half Priced Books.  There in front of me was a glorious reminder of all the great things about that strange trip…..walking around Paris at night, looking at all the old beautiful buildings and yes, always on the look out for dog poop. You really will see it all over the sidewalks and many unfortunates step in it as they are looking around, be always on guard! The food is really good there too. I had some memorable meals in that city with my sister.  The book that brought it all back.

You can make these at home?!!?!

 I never considered that I could make these myself! Of course you can.  One warning, the book overcomplicates it.  There’s so much talk of aged egg whites (?!?), letting the macarons sit before you put them in the oven, and on and on. I fell for all this     nonsense and had a wonderful experience making them and then a disaster!

Luckily for me I came upon a blog in my travels that debunked all the myths. After all, she said you are making a cookie, I’m paraphrasing slightly here.  Her site is called BraveTart and I suggest if you have any interest in making Macarons you go there and read her 10 myths and her 10 commandments of macaron-making.

I’ve also recently come across lots of posts about pastries in Paris and one particular name keeps coming up as a genius of dessert! Pierre Herme and the dessert that caught my imagination is called Ispahan.  Ispahan is the name of a Damascus Rose with a beautiful fragrance.   The dessert is a combination of Rose, Lychee and Rasperries and from what I can tell the combination is used in a macaron.

Now I’m half Greek so rose scented sweets are nothing new to me. It’s a familiar flavor along with mastica, cloves, all spice etc.  Lychees are another flavor I adore, they are similar in flavor to roses in a way so I get the combination and rasperries?  Who doesn’t like rasperries?  My only thought is that the rasperry might overpower the rest of the flavors.  I also found a blogger who has attempted her own version of this macaron….The Pleasure Monger  she is macaron obsessed and has some very creative cominations.  In this one she uses a lychee marscapone filling and a tea infused jelly!  Well that got me to thinking.

Now I know one day I MUST get an actual Pierre Herme Ispahan but until that day comes I will make a riff as mucisian say on that theme.  Here’s what I came up with……….. Greeks eat alot of Turkish food and yet they claim to despise the Turks, their old nemesis.  They drink Turkish coffee, they eat Turkish delight, which they call Loukoumi.  Turkish delight is rose flavored gel basically, very sweet and very good.  My riff started with imagining a very thin layer of this.

Super thin Turkish delight

 To make this you will need rose water. Most ethnic type stores will have it, usually if they carry middle eastern products.

• 1/2 c powdered sugar
• 1 1/2 Tb cornstarch
• 1 c water
• 1/4 c suga
• r2 Tb rose water

 Combine all the ingredients except the rose water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to med low and cook for about an hour, whisking often.  Add the rose water in the last 10 mins and stir well. Remove from heat and immediately pour onto a silicone baking sheet or well greased parchment paper.  You might be able to used greased plastic wrap but I’m afraid it might melt. Let it sit at room tempurature until it cools down. It will be sticky.  If you were going to just make it into Turkish delight you would make much more and put it in a pan, it would be about 1 inch thick and then you would slice it and roll it in powdered sugar. Some people add nuts such as pistachios to it, I prefer it plain.

 Macarons (I’m using BraveTarts basic recipe here, it works very well. Go to the link above and read before you make them)

• 4 oz almond flour
• 8 oz powdered sugar
• 5 oz egg whites
• 2 1/2 oz sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 300. Combine the almond flour with the powdered sugar in a food processor and blend very well.  Whip the egg whites with the regular sugar in a mixer until you get stiff whites.  It takes about 9 minutes at med-high speed. When they are stiff add the salt & vanilla and whisk again for about a minute to combine really well.  Fold in the almond/sugar mixture all at once until it reaches a lava like stage. This is the hardest part because you can overmix. You will be putting the batter into a piping bag and piping circles onto your baking sheet so you don’t want it to be too runny.  Please read her post for tips. Bake on a parchment covered sheet for 18-20 minutes.  If the macaron comes off the sheet easily and doesn’t stick they are done. Let them cool. Brilliant!

crunchy, chewy goodness

The filling was where I had problems and will have to try again….isn’t that too bad?  I tried basing it off The Pleasure Monger’s recipe.

•  1/2 package of cream cheese

• 2 Tb sour cream

• splash of milk

• 1/2 cup white chocolate

• 2 Tb butter

• 1/4-1/2 c lychee juice

Melt the white chocolate and butter in a bowl over simmering water. Combine the cream cheese, sour cream and milk until it’s smooth. I blasted it in the microwave for a few seconds.  Add it to the white chocolate mixture and start to add in the lychee juice, tasting it until it’s the flavor is strong.  Her recipe calls for pureed lychees but I didn’t find any fresh or canned locally and didn’t want to go all over. I thought the juice would work but the mixture was too runny.  I tried thickening it with tapioca starch but it should have been thicker.  Next time………. Oh and they were a big hit at my office!

Lychee rose

Disaster strikes, thanks Martha!

Pink and pinker!

Uggggh.  I should have known it was begginers luck.  Attempt two of the macarons was…not so good.  Try a different recipe I thought, well if I’m completely honest it’s because my book calls for 2 egg whites and I had three in one bowl.  I hate to waste.  I had used three egg yolks for a different recipe and here I was left with three egg whites.  So like any logical person, I looked for a new macaron recipe that called for 3.  Enter Martha Stewart. I searched online and there she was with a macaron recipe that called for three egg whites!  I should have known better.  Does Martha actually, personally test her recipes?  I doubt it. So:

Ingredients

•                                         1 1/4 cups plus 1 teaspoon confectioners sugar
•                                         1 cup (4 ounces) finely ground sliced, blanched almonds
•                                         6 tablespoons fresh egg whites (from about 3 extra-large eggs)
•                                         Pinch of salt
•                                         1/4 cup granulated sugar

And arrogantly I didn’t read the rest of the recipe. I know what I’m doing right?  I’ve made these all of one time before.  Nevertheless, I am confident.

I’m making vanilla flavor with eggnogg filling. ” Jason, what color should we make these?” ” Oh, Christmas red”.  So I add Christmas red food coloring paste and it’s a bit old, and it’s not mixing in properly, so I add more.  There are chunks of it in the merengue!  I try to pipe the circles and I have chunks of almond blocking the tip. Disastrous, frustration,… why do I want to make these anyway? But I persevere, how bad could it be?  On the second batch I see a big chunk of color so I mix it in, half of my macarons are light pink, half will be shocking pink.  The extra coloring must have affected the mix because these are sticking to the silicone pad and half of them are breaking up.  D*@# and other bad works escape my mouth. Jason makes a comment about bad moods. Lalala… I’m not listening!   And viola!  They taste waaaay too sweet, they have a nice chewy texture though…..back to the drawing board.

First Macaron attempt

Oh Macaron, how I love you. I first discovered these little delicio delights while visiting my sister in Paris. All I knew before was coconut macaroons, which can be delightful as well.  But these were something else altogether, light, crispy, chewy.  Well one day back here I found a book with 30 macaron recipes. For my sister, that was my thought, until I got home and showed Jason and we decided we had to test the recipes out first. I mean, that’s only proper right?  Anyway, Jason picked the flavor of our first ever macaron.  Saffron with Cardamom filling.

The guide. 3/4 c ground almonds ( must be finely ground) 1 c confectioners sugar 2 extra large egg whites 1/4 tsp crushed saffron strands 1/4 c superfine sugar yellow food coloring Filling 4 Tb butter seeds from 4 cardamom pods crushed (I used 1/2 tsp powder) 1 c confectioners sugarProcess the almonds & confectioners sugar in a food processor. Sift into a bowl. In a separate bowl whip the egg whites with saffron until holding soft peaks. Gradually add superfine sugar to make a glossy meringue. Beat in food coloring to make a pale yellow.Using a spatula, fold the almond mix into the meringue one third at a time. When all the ingredients are incorporated continue to cut and fold until it forms a shiny batter with a thick ribbonlike consistency.Pour the batter into a pastry bag with a 1/2 inch plain tip. Pipe small circles onto the baking sheets. Use parchment paper or silicone mat. Tap the baking sheets firmly onto a work surface to remove air bubbles. Let stand at room temp for 30 mins. I did one batch without waiting and one with. I didn't notice much of a difference. Preheat over to 325, bake for 10-15 mins. I did 10. Cool for 10 minutes and remove to rack. Make the filling and sandwich between two cookies.Out of the oven.

  It must have been beginners luck, because I’ve heard these are very tricky to make. They turned out really well  although I must say that when I left them out for 30 mins prior to baking, they cracked more and seemed to slide off their bottoms? I must learn how to pipe a more consistent sized circle as well, I had many different sizes! I also think the filling needs lots of work. It was too buttery and thick.  I’m not sure what but I didn’t like it much. For my debut however, I was pleased with the result.

  More work will have to be done in the lab before the definitive macaron is made.