Leftover Egg Yolks

Macaron crusts are made from egg whites, which means that all of the egg yolks are left unused. Hisako Ogita gives out numerous easy-to-make desserts using the leftover egg yolks in her book, one of them being vanilla pudding! This recipe is great because it prevents you from wasting food and is very easy to make. The rich and creamy taste is also loved by both kids and adults!

Ingredients: 

• 3 egg yolks
• 1/8 cup (30 grams) granulated sugar
• 6 tablespoons (100 cc) whipping cream
• 6 tablespoons (100 cc) milk
• 1 vanilla bean

Steps:
First, I put the egg yolks that I didn't use from my previous macarons into a bowl along with the granulated sugar. Hisako Ogita then says to "stir until the mixture begins to lighten in color" (75). This helped to tell when to stop and move on to the next step, which was to add the whipping cream and milk while stirring once again (Ogita 75).

Once I was done stirring, Ogita says to distribute the liqueur evenly into separate pudding molds. (75). However, I didn't have any pudding molds at the time, so instead, I distributed the mixture into a muffin pan and baked for 40 minutes  300 degrees Farenheit.



















In the end, the pudding tasted delicious! The only different thing I'd do next is to double the recipe because the pudding had disappeared into my families stomachs in less than an hour, which was also shows how good they tasted. This was probably the easiest recipe I've ever done and it was also efficient because it required the unused egg yolks from the macaron egg whites, providing two deserts in one go!

Q: What's the easiest thing you've ever baked?

Ogita, Hisako. I Macarons. San Francisco: Chronicle, 2009. Print.

Custard Cream Filling

To expand off of the vanilla cream filling that I have made in all of my other previous macaron posts, this time I had decided to challenge making custard cream filling - one of my personal favorite flavors. As Hisako Ogita says, "Custard cream is made from a custard base of flour, eggs, milk, and sugar boiled down to make a thick cream" (48). Slightly intimidated by the fact that I was trying something new, I wasn't expecting much success going into baking this time, but I still gave it my best shot.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 vanilla bean
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup (15 grams) pastry flour
• 7/8 cup milk

Steps:

First, I went through the same steps in my macaron crusts post to create the crusts, except with orange food coloring this time. I think these were the best looking crusts I had ever made, except for the fact that some of them had little bumps on the top (because my mother wanted to try using the pastry bag).

After the crusts were finished, I then moved on to the custard cream filling. Ogita says to put egg yolks and granulated sugar into a bowl and whisk until the mixture turned slightly white (48) - I was a bit scared at first because after whisking for a long time, the mixture stayed yellow and would not turn white at all. However, after about five minutes it looked kind of white. 

This led me to add the pastry flour to the mixture, and also start warming milk and vanilla bean pods in a pot over the stove. After the pot mixture was warmed, I poured it into the bowl mixture from before, only to pour it back into the pot, "straining it with a strainer" (Ogita 49). This helped removed all the excess from the mixture and make the mixture smoother.

As the strained mixture started to bubble, I was supposed to stir for one minute and then turn off the heat (Ogita 49). However, I left on the heat for a little too long, resulting in the custard turning out a bit lumpy after refrigerated...

But it all tasted good in the end. After my crusts baked, I spread the lumpy custard in between, creating orange(ish) custard macarons! In my opinion, these were the best macarons I had ever made because I didn't run into any troubles (except for the lumpy custard) and they were completed in under three hours - which is a great accomplishment they usually take FOREVER to make. Their appearance wasn't too bad either, except for the bumps my mom had made on the crusts...

THEY TASTED SO GOOD!

Q: What's your favorite flavor? (e.g. custard, caramel, vanilla, chocolate, strawberry...)

Ogita, Hisako. I Macarons. San Francisco: Chronicle, 2009. Print.

Pink Macarons!

In my previous posts, the macarons that I had made all appeared ugly, boring, and colorless. This is a stark contrast to the small, cute, and colorful macarons that are seen in many bakeries. This time, I decided to challenge making the same macarons but also attempt to make them appear less ugly and more appealing to the eye, a step above the bland macarons I had made before.

After creating the batter, Hisako Ogita says that to add color, "Gradually add the coloring into the meringue; stir quickly but not too much. The color becomes lighter after it is baked, so make a little darker batter" (35). This led to adding about 8 drops of pink food coloring to get a clear color.

After the meringue was finished, Ogita has suggested that using a guide to squeeze batter onto will make the shape of the macarons more even and orderly (24), so I went out and bought a reusable baking sheet with circles that can be used as a guide to improve the crust shape from last times disaster.

Before, without a guide -  the batter had spread around on the sheet, creating uneven shapes

The upgrade!

The guide turned out to be VERY helpful when squeezing the batter out of the pastry bag. The process wasn't as rushed and confusing as before, and I was able to get most of the macaron shapes even.

Afterwards, with the guide - most macaron shapes turned out the same

After making the crusts, I quickly made the same butter filling I had made from the previous post, spread it onto the crusts, and I had pink macarons! Personally, I prefer these ones over the last ones since they look better AND I was able to complete more macarons because a larger number of crusts were able to sandwich with each other compared to last time.

Before

After

 Q: Would you rather have 6 large ugly cookies or 24 small cute cookies?

Ogita, Hisako. I Macarons. San Francisco: Chronicle, 2009. Print.

Making Macaron Filling

The next step after baking the macaron crusts (view last post) is to make the filling to go in between, completing the macaron. This filling can be anything from sweet cream cheese to tangy raspberry filling and countless other flavors. For my macarons, I decided to make vanilla-flavored butter cream to go with the vanilla flavored macaron crusts that I had made previously.

Vanilla-Flavored Butter Cream Filling

Ingredients:

• 7 tablespoons (100 grams) unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons (40 milliliters) water
• 3 tablespoons (40 grams) granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• Vanilla extract

Steps:

To start off, I cut the butter into 2 inch pieces and heated them up in the microwave for 10 seconds, continuing until the butter was soft enough to stick my finger to press into (Ogita, 42). Once this was done, I stirred the butter until it became "smooth and creamy like mayonnaise" (Ogita, 42) which helped to indicate when to stop stirring the butter and move on to the next step. 

After stirring the butter, I put water and granulated sugar into a heat-resistant container and stirred. The next step was to heat the mixture in the microwave for about 5 minutes, until the sugar was completely dissolved. This step was actually very difficult because the sugar kept burning and turning the whole mixture black when it was actually supposed to look clear and syrupy. 

The black mixture would have then turned solid and cling to the container as it cooled, which was a nuisance to clean out afterwards. I had to repeat this step over and over, being careful not to burn the sugar in the microwave. I eventually got the mixture syrup-ish without burning it, which was enough for me at that point.

In another bowl, I added the problematic syrup into a bowl with a beaten egg, mixing until the mixture becomes white and heavy. After doing so, I added the butter from the first step and beat it until the butter was well mixed. Ogita pointed out that "While beating the butter and syrup, bubbles may appear that seem to separate the butter from the syrup. You may think you have made a mistake but just continue beating until the butter becomes creamy" (Ogita, 43). This helped to reassure that I wasn't doing anything wrong when the mixture looked questionable, so I was grateful for the pointer.

 After the butter and syrup mixture has become creamy, I added a few drops of vanilla extract, stirring well. After this was done, the filling was complete and I spread the cream into the crusts I had made previously to complete the macarons!

 Although the finished product looks a little ugly and boring compared to the colorful cute macarons you see at bakeries, they tasted just fine (and maybe a little burnt). In my lack of baking experience, if the macarons are edible then it's a success! Hisako Ogita taught me that with more practice, you'll be able to make macarons with no trouble at all.

Q: What is the biggest mistake you've made while baking? 

Ogita, Hisako. I Macarons. San Francisco: Chronicle, 2009. Print.

Making Macaron Crusts

Macarons are personally my favorite dessert. The cute appearance and unique texture of the puffs combined with the rich filling compliment each other in an addicting manner that will make you want more! However, eating these sweet confections is way easier than making them. To get the right signature texture of the crust, you have to be exactly precise when measuring and mixing ingredients. Therefore, I tried to challenge myself by attempting to make a basic macaron crust.

Vanilla Flavored Macaron Batter

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup (85 grams) ground almonds
• 1 1/2 cups (150 grams) powdered sugar
• 3 large egg whites, at room temperature "Eggs at room temperature beat up better than an egg that you crack open right from the refrigerator" (Ogita, 20).
• 5 tablespoons (65 grams) powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, or seeds from 1/2 vanilla bean

(Tip: weighing ingredients with a kitchen scale is more accurate than measuring with cups and spoons)

Steps
The first step was to grind the almonds and powdered sugar in a food processor into a fine powder. Once this was done, I tried to sift the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve, but this was hard to do so because the book had specifically called for a medium-mesh sieve (Ogita, 24). The holes were too small for the mixture to fall through easily, so this step took more than an hour to complete. If I had a bigger mesh-sieve, the sifting wouldn't have been so hard to complete.

Once I had sifted the mixture thoroughly two times, I set the powder aside and started beating egg whites on high speed while gradually adding granulated sugar and vanilla. Once the meringue was stiff and firm with a glossy texture (Ogita, 25), this indicated the next stept to add the sifted flour powder to the meringue.

Macaronnage is the exact term for mixing the flour mixture and the meringue together to make macarons. You basically spread the batter against the sides of the bowl and then scoop it from the bottom and mix it together. It was confusing at first, but you get the hang of it pretty quickly after a few tries.

"If the macaronnage step is repeated less than 10 times, the baked macarons will lack luster. However, when it is repeated more than 20 times, oil stains may remain on the pastry's surface when the macarons are baked" (Ogita, 26). - which shows how precise you have to be when stirring the mixture. I mixed mine about 15 times before moving the batter into a pastry bag.

When squeezing the batter onto the baking sheet, I would advise making VERY small circles and leave a lot of space in between, or else your poor macarons will end up like this after you bake it:

Deformed, uneven, and ugly... My family ate all the deformed ones that had no partner - and they actually tasted pretty decent. The other good thing about my macaron crusts besides the fact that they came out in weird shapes is that they formed a pied, or a "foot" at their bottoms. This is the small pleat like frills at the bottom of a macaron. Without the pied, the cookie cannot be called a macaron (Ogita, 29). So in a way, I sort of succeeded making macaron crusts for the first time in my life. The next step is to create the filling!

Q: Have you ever tried to make macarons? If so, what was the hardest part of baking them? If not, would you try and attempt to bake them?

Ogita, Hisako. I Macarons. San Francisco: Chronicle, 2009. Print.