Coffee Macarons with Chocolate Ganache Filling

 Macaron baking is my latest addiction. It's an absolute pleasure sitting close to the oven glass and watching the feet arise from the macaron batter and then that sigh of relief! I can't express the feeling. I've been baking a lot since last two months; but still I keep my fingers crossed while mixing the batter, feel nervous everytime and dance to the success attempts. I had bought a new oven recently and fixing out the temperature settings for the macarons took a while and now fixed at 130C. Might be because the oven is new and the temperature a little high.

This set of macarons was baked in October, last year. I'm basically one lazy girl to type and post; especially when it comes to decorated cakes or macarons where there are a lot to type. I was not intending to post this until I saw the Home Bakers Challenge ,co-hosted by The Brave Cook where I had to post Macarons. I thought I would post this one which is one of our all time favorites. Coffee and chocolate is a wonderful combintaion and the kids as well as adults love this to the core. I hope this chewy delectable coffee macarons (or you can call it Mocha Macarons) may satisfy your sweet tongue and please your family. 

Recipe:

Adapted from Joy of Baking

Eggwhites 50g

Almond Flour 50g

Icing sugar 90g

Caster Sugar 15g

Instant Coffee powder 1 tsp

Method:

1. Line a baking tray with silicon sheet or baking sheet.

2. Age your egg-whites for atleast 24 hours at room temperature or upto 2 days in refrigerator, loosely covered. ie; to cover egg-whites in a clean bowl using cling film, prick that film with knife,just twice and then, keep them on your kitchen counter for a day or in refrigerator for 2 days.

3.Place icing sugar and almond powder together in a bowl and set aside. If almond flour is not finely ground, then blend it in a food processor together with icing sugar.

4.Beat castor sugar and egg white on a bowl in medium-high speed until soft peaks form . Continue to beat until egg white looks smooth and shiny. (and not dry)

5. Fold in the dry ingredients into this meringue in 3-4 batches . Do not overmix the batter. Just take a spoon of the mixture and drop on a plate and if no peaks are formed on top, the mixture is rightly folded. If peaks are formed, fold again. Folding should not exceed 50 strokes. Add coffee to this just 6 to 7 strokes before stopping if you wanto

6. Spoon the batter into the piping bag and then pipe it onto the baking sheets in round shapes. You can use macaron templates for that. Check this link for pictures of using templates.

7. Let the macarons rest for 15-30 mts or until a dry layer is formed on top of macarons. When you touch them, u can feel the dry layer. Switching on the a/c at high will help them dry fast.

8. Preheat your oven at 140C. Bake a tray at a time for 15-20 mts.

9. Cool the tray on a wire rack and remove the macarons. If you find difficuilty in removing them, spray a little water on the sheet and then remove it. Don't leave it for so long after spraying water as it may turn macarons soggy.

7. Fill them with  chocolate ganache and sandwich them. Keep in the fridge for atleast 3 days for better & chewy macarons. Serve at room temperature.

Ganache Filling:

Chocolate chips (semi-sweet or bittersweet)  50g

Heavy Cream                                               50g

Unsalted Butter                                            1tsp

Method:

Place the chopped chocolate in a medium sized heatproof bowl. Set aside. Heat the cream and butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. (Can also heat the cream and butter in the microwave.) Bring just to a boil. Immediately pour the boiling cream over the chocolate and allow to stand, without stirring, for a few minutes. Stir gently (as you do not want to incorporate air into the ganache) with a spoon or whisk until smooth.

Vardhini's BAke fest event co hosted by Priyas Versatile recipes

Danish Butter Cookies-Coconut Flavored

Now, my friends and readers started inquiring me about my frequent blogposts these days. That's so sweet of them. :) There's nothing special about these days other than that I'm here at my mom's place and have lots of spare time to blog.. I was not active since a few months because of some personal problems. My family had to go through some tough times when I started staying away from blogs or other social networking sites. By the grace of God ,all is well now and back to normal lives. But I hate fb for the good now ,  unlike before. So I get to spend a lot of time  with family and kids these days.

Coming to the recipe, this is the best cookie I've ever baked. It's crunchy, buttery, coconutty and wat more. I 'm sure  kids as well as elders would love this so much. 

Ingredients:

Courtesy: Dodol Mochi

100 g cake flour* – sifted once

10 g cornstarch *– sifted once

20 g Dessicated coconut

75 g unsalted butter – softened at room temperature

50 g powdered sugar – sifted once

¼ tsp vanilla extract

* Check here for conversions

Method:

1.Mix flour, cornflour and coconut nicely and keep aside.

2.Beat butter and sugar on high speed till pale and fluffy. Add vanilla essence to it.

3.Fold the flour mix into the buttercream in two or three batches,using a wooden spatula  till a dough has formed. Don't overwork the dough as you may get tough cookies at the end.

4.Wrap the dough up in plastic film, then let it chill and rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

5.Remove the dough from the fridge. Then, scoop out a small dough for each cookie and roll it into a ball. Place the shaped cookie dough on parchment-lined baking sheet(s), leaving about 4 centimeters apart in between the cookies. The dough will spread during baking. Repeat till the dough is used up.

6.First, bake at 160°C for about 10-15 minutes. After that, turn off the oven and leave the cookies inside, with the oven door shut, for about 10 minutes.

1. * Since I tripled the recipe, I got more cookies. For my subsequent batches (after the first round of baking), they required less time to bake as the cookies seemed to brown faster in the seemingly hotter oven. Well, just monitor the oven closely while the cookies bake. *

Remove the cookies from the oven, and transfer them to cooling rack(s) to let cool completely before serving and/or storing in airtight container(s).

Linking this toCutchii Kitchen

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/simplysensationalfood/kLCS/~3/h-wF5h2eFnw/announcing-event-lets-cook-with-coconut.html

Danish Butter cookies- The Swirl/Round One

Danish Butter Cookies in a Blue tin brings back lots of childhood memories. They were considered as the most cherished and premium cookies, li'l bit expensive and the first option opted as  gift while visiting guests. Things has not changed much inside the blue tin since years. They still look and taste the same. We kids took a while before selecting our favourites among them. Of all, the one with a whole in the middle and the one with raisins were my favourites. I always tried to insert my finger inside that whole of circular cookies and ate just like that, lol!! I couldn't stop with just one or two cookies at a time; Insanely addicted, I must say!

I've been thinking about baking this for a while now. My kids now started liking home baked goodies more than the shop bought ones. That's a bit relaxing for me too as I can play with certain ingredients to make it healthier and also keep my kids away from preservatives or the kind.So googled it and found the recipe here. It's too delicious. I've baked one more flavor which will soon be posted here.

 Baking cookies is not a big deal though; this one especially is so easy as we don't have to keep it for resting in refrigerator or no hassle with mixing or beating butter... Just mix all the ingredients together, pipe it onto baking sheets and bake it for 8-10 minutes; that's it!

Ingredients

1 egg (60g)
200g butter
130g icing sugar
320g flour
1 1/2 tbsp of vanilla essence

Method

1.Mix all the ingredients together using egg beater or hand mixer.

2. Pipe wreaths (circular shapes) onto cookie sheet or baking tray using an open star tip. I used Wilton 1M , but you can use a smaller one too.

3. Bake in a preheated oven at 200C for 7-8 min. I baked at 170C for 9-10 mts. 200 degrees was too much for my oven.

4.Leave to cool slightly before removing from cookie sheet.

5.Transfer cookies into airtight container after cookies are at room temperature.

Linking this toCutchii Kitchen

                                                 

 

Amrita's page

Rakshabandhan Event

Hide N Seek Biscuits (Replica)

I was wanting to try out this recipe ever-since I've seen this in a blog (Hamaree Rasoi), some 2 years ago. But it got delayed and somehow managed to bake this during Childrens Day last year. You can't imagine how excited my kids were when they knew I was going to bake one of their all time favourites. I think there's no any kid who don't like Hide n seek Biscuits. Grabbing one whole packet within seconds is not a big deal for them.

Ingredients:
(Recipe Courtesy:Hamaree Rasoi)

1/2 cup Unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup Powdered sugar
2 Egg yolks
1 1/2 cup All purpose flour
2 tbsp Cocoa powder
2 tsp Chocolate/Vanilla essence
1 tsp Baking powder
1/2 tbsp Choco chips +1/2 choco chips for decoration
Pinch of salt

Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 170 C.

Sift flour, baking powder, cocoa and salt .

In another bowl, beat butter and sugar using a beater till it turns fluffy and light.

Beat in essence and egg yolks one by one. Gently stir in the flour mixture and mix well.

Finally add in the chocolate chips and combine well.

Wrap this dough in a cling film and keep it in the fridge for 1/2 hour.

Take out the dough and take out a small chunk, roll it between your palms and press it on the baking sheet. You can use a roti press/maker for this. With a square cutter, take out the extra dough to make it a complete square. Try to maintain the same thickness while you are pressing the dough balls.

As soon as you are done with 12 biscuits on the tray, with a toothpick, draw slanted lines across the cookies.

I know this the worst picture I've ever posted.. but only for you :)

And sprinkle the rest of the choco chips on top. Bake these for 10 to 12 minutes. Don't over bake them. Cool them on wire racks and later store them in an air tight jars.

Linking this to:

What's with my cuppa? Event hosted by Avika originally hosted byUK Rasoi

Rakshabandhan Event

Noora's Cornflakes and Honey Drops(video demonstration)

Noora, my daughter, is 10 now. Kids grow up too fast. It seems like yesterday I was holding her as my first born baby and now, she is in her apron. Masha Allah! She has always liked to assist me in baking whereas she hates the day to day cooking chores. Whenever I call her for a help there, she always stood away from it. Now, it was just a day or 2 back, that I've thought of doing some videos with her. These days, as you all could see, I got addicted to You Tube. lol. I didn't had any patience and went on with shooting in the midst of her final exams. I wanted to give her a break from studies also; thought of shooting this just as a trial. Took my small cam and just started. Then thought of learning the editing part and that really took a lot of time. After all those chores, I didn't want my effort to go waste and decided to post it here. :)

This is an easy, yet crunchy and delicious recipe. Even kids can do it. It's quite addictive too.. I bet, you can't stop with just one or two. This recipe was passed on to me by Hanan's sister-in-law, Haseena Shoukath.

Check this link for Noora's video demonstration:

Ingredients:
Makes 8-10

Butter 2 tbsp
Honey 2 tbsp
Sugar 1 tbsp
Cornflakes 1 1/2 cups
Almond flakes or any other nuts, chocolate chips,raisins etc..

Method:

Melt butter,honey and sugar together in a pan, until the sugar dissolves completely. You can either microwave upto 40 seconds.

Preheat your oven at 170 C.

Mix in all other ingredients nicely that these are well coated with the honey mixture.

Spoon these into the muffin cases/paper cups.

Bake upto 12 minutes or until its color changes a bit and the syrup dries up. The cooking time completely depends upon the quantity of cornflakes you spooned into those cases.

It may turn hard if you overbake it.

Let it cool for 10-15 minutes to turn it to crispy.


Linking this to Bake Fest Event hosted by Homemaker's Diary Originally hosted byCooks Joy

Macarons with Raspberry Filling

Happy New Year! I hope one can wish new year anytime in January ;) 

I know I'm always late. These celebrations bring in holidays with them and so it's really hard to find a gap for blogging. It was winter vacation for kids and Jab has got to finish off his pending leaves this year. So this holiday was completely packed with many stuffs. First week in AbuDhabi with parents, second week at home with guests' stayover.

I just wanted to go nowhere this new year, but had to,for the kids sake. The laser show and fireworks at Burj Khalifah are one of the major events happening here on new years since past few years. So we decided to go there and reached there by 5 pm. As there were 7 more hours to 12, we had to spend our time somewhere else. It was too crowded that we decided to have our dinner so early by 6 and did so; watched a movie after that 'Life of the Pi'. When left the theatre, we were shocked to see the rush outside. The exit door to the fountain area was closed and we were directed towards the Mall Exit. It was so conjusted there that we could hardly breathe in. The footpath outside the mall was full, the roads were closed. We sat there on the path with many others. Thank God that Burj Khalifah is visible from almost all parts of Dubai. :)

Warning : This is not for those who witnessed Trissur Pooram before ;)

 

DSF has arrived . The UAE people are not so excited about shopping festival these days other than a compulsory visit to the global village. I hardly remember those days when we got struck in traffic for hours and hours. But this time, as my sis-in law was here with her family, we took them to creek side park for the inaugural ceremony and yea, the function has changed for good by the passage of time. The programme, especially the musical fireworks and the dancing angels were awesome.

MY MAC STORY:

I've always been fascinated with macarons. I've been wanting to make macarons since I saw them in  Finla's but was afraid when I went through the failure attempts of many bloggers. Thats when  Shabs baked these small mouthful of heaven and it's she who motivated me to try it. She keeps on experimenting different flavours and has given a detailed article on Mac baking on her first post on Macarons.Her pictures are so captivating that tempts me always to try those recipes as soon as I could. Her macs are now famous and we friends call her 'The Mac Queen'. My Mac journey started here.

The ingredients are just four. If you see any youtube video, you won't see any easier recipe than this.. BUT to get it correct or perfect , is as tough as that. These have a smooth rounded outer shell and flat ruffled bottom with what’s called “feet". If you see the 'feet' in your macs, you are 80% nearer to perfection. But the best part is, however flop it comes out, it tastes awesome.

My first try on macarons.used my microwave convection oven for this. The base was sticky and not done perfectly, as the oven had inverter technology and so the macs was overbaked ontop. But I could see the Feet.. HURRAY!! And texture was good too..

Second try-coffee macs,when I used homemade almond flour. The flour was not finely ground. It did come out nicely, but my son  played with it when kept for cooling :(. He liked the crack sound .o. Third try-strawberry macs. Tried in my gas oven.Almond skin is seen :( Now, here is my Macarons Topped Cake

Recipe:

Adapted from Ottolenghi – The Cookbook

Eggwhites 60g

Almond Flour 60g

Icing sugar 110g

Caster Sugar 40g

Raspberry Jam for the filling

Method:

1. Line a baking tray with silicon sheet or baking sheet.

2. Age your egg-whites for atleast 24 hours at room temperature or upto 2 days in refrigerator, loosely covered. ie; to cover egg-whites in a clean bowl using cling film, prick that film with knife,just twice and then, keep them on your kitchen counter for a day or in refrigerator for 2 days.

3.Place icing sugar and almond powder together in a bowl and set aside. If almond flour is not finely ground, then blend it in a food processor together with icing sugar.

4.Beat castor sugar and egg white on a bowl in medium-high speed until soft peaks form and then add the color. Continue to beat until egg white looks smooth and shiny. (and not dry)

5. Fold in the dry ingredients into this meringue in 3-4 batches . Do not overmix the batter. Just take a spoon of the mixture and drop on a plate and if no peaks are formed on top, the mixture is rightly folded. If peaks are formed, fold again. Folding should not exceed 50 strokes.

6. Spoon the batter into the piping bag and then pipe it onto the baking sheets in round shapes. You can use macaron templates for that. Check this link for pictures of using templates.

7. Let the macarons rest for 15-30 mts or until a dry layer is formed on top of macarons. When you touch them, u can feel the dry layer. Switching on the a/c at high will help them dry fast.

8. Preheat your oven at 140C. Bake a tray at a time for 15-20 mts.

9. Cool the tray on a wire rack and remove the macarons. If you find difficuilty in removing them, spray a little water on the sheet and then remove it. Don't leave it for so long after spraying water as it may turn macarons soggy.

7. Fill them with raspberry jam or any other jam or chocolate ganache and sandwich them. Keep in the fridge for atleast 3 days for better & chewy macarons. Serve at room temperature.

Linking this to Bookmarked Recipes Event

Bake fest originally hosted by Vardhini

Raspberry & Vanilla Macarons Cake

Eid Mubarak!! I know this can't be an Eid dish; but I'm too busy to type another post as this was pending in the drafts since last June. So here's a collection of Eid recipes from past posts:

Main Meal

Kannur Biriyani (Mutton)

Fish Biriyani

BBQ Chicken Biriyani

Nauratan Vegetable Biriyani

Majboos

Alisa/Arees

Desserts

Trifle Pudding

Floating Island

Crunchy Delight

Pineapple and Dry fruits pudding

Madakku Pathal /Sweet Parathas

 Somethings are worth the effort and this really was. A simple cake it was; but what made me happy was that  I could manage to find out the taste of my family after years of baking. Yes, they need everything light and less sweet- no cream and no chocolaty.. Whereas , I'm a dark chocolate person, loves cream in anything including my coffee and yeah less sugar is the only thing when i can say them 'hey i'm there with u'...

 Here I took quarter cup lesser sugar than the original recipe for them, filled the bottom layer with jam, top layer with meringue frosting and then coated with the same and glazed with chocolate. I was about to make three colored and four layered cake; orange cake was also baked the previous day along with the raspberry ones; the smell that burst out of orange zest and juice was so captivating that we couldn't wait more. When Razin asked, who is also an orangeholic,whether he could taste a bit.. i said yes- took the whole large cake, cut into pieces and gulpp.. thats it.

 I'm using chocolate glaze for the first time and didn't know that its gonna set as soon as we pour it on top. So that part turned out to be a little messy. But Wallah! the cake was delicious and finger licking good. 
 The home-made macarons on top added to it.  I haven't posted the recipe of macarons yet; but Insha Allah will do it soon! Those plain shells of  macarons were filled in with raspberry jam ; the flavor of raspberry is deliciously infused into the shells.

I've followed the same recipe, devided the batter into two, then mixed one half of the batter with 1 tbsp of fresh raspberry puree and red colour. The other half was mixed with 1 tbsp of Orange juice,a tsp of orange zest and orange color. (I added orange color accidentally to raspberry cake and red color to orange cake which spoiled the entire look :(

Ingredients

courtesy: Martha Stewart

• 
  
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pans
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for pans
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 3 large egg yolks
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup low-fat buttermilk
• 
  

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170 C degrees. Butter and flour two 8-by-2-inch cake pans, tapping out excess flour. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
2. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. With mixer on low, beat in eggs and yolks, one at a time. Beat in vanilla. Alternately beat in flour mixture and buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture; mix just until combined.
3. Divide batter between pans; smooth tops. Bake until cakes pull away from sides of pans, 32 to 35 minutes. Let cool in pans 10 minutes. Run a knife around edges of pans and invert cakes onto a wire rack. Let cool completely.
4. Place one cake, bottom side up, on a cake stand. Tuck strips of parchment paper underneath. Using an offset-spatula or table knife, spread top with Whipped Frosting. Top with remaining cake; frost top, then sides.

• 
  
• Whipped Frosting
• 
  
• 3 large egg whites
• 3/4 cup sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1/3 cup water
• 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Method:

In a heatproof bowl set over (not in) a saucepan of simmering water, combine egg whites, sugar, salt, and water. Cook over medium, stirring constantly, until sugar has dissolved (or mixture registers 150 degrees on an instant-read thermometer), 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat on medium-high until glossy, stiff peaks form (do not overbeat), about 3 minutes; reduce speed to low, add vanilla extract, and beat just until combined. Use immediately.

Cook's Note

Reserve the egg whites left over from the cake for the frosting. If you don't have buttermilk, substitute plain yogurt or sour cream (not fat-free).