Thursday 31 October 2019

Pistachio and Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel Dinosaur Macarons (new filling recipe!)

I had a request for quite a large quantity of dinosaur macarons and I got the chance to try out a new flavour! Pistachio! I will share the recipe for this in the blog post.

Whimsical looking! 

I used the Swiss meringue method to make these dinosaurs and the recipe can be found in this post. I must admit it was a little tricky to get the shade of colour close to the reference. Here's a photo of the piped batter before baking.


Freshly baked shells! 

I used edible marker to add in the details like eyes, mouth, claws, spots and stripes. I used peach coloured lustre dust to brush on the rosy cheeks.


I filled the triceratops and stegosaurus with dark chocolate ganache and salted caramel. I filled the brontosaurus and Tyrannosaurus with pistachio white chocolate ganache. I am not familiar with working with nut based filling from scratch so it was a good learning experience for me. You may think that after baking for about six years I would know that nuts have to be roasted before you use them, otherwise the nutty flavour and aroma will not be strong. Well I only realised my mistake after making the filling because I was following a recipe that didn't make any mention about roasting or that roasted nuts were used ๐Ÿคฃ. So yes please roast the nuts first! I adapted the recipe from here. My version contains a higher percentage of pistachios and is a lot less sweet because I substitute a substantial amount of white chocolate with cocoa butter.

Recipe for pistachio white chocolate ganache
Ingredients:
100g shelled raw pistachios (unsalted)
180g heavy cream
1 tsp Sea salt
100g cocoa butter chips or shavings
130g white chocolate, finely chopped

Steps:
1. Line a baking tray with parchment paper and spread out the pistachios in a single layer on the tray. Bake in preheated oven at 180°C for about 8 min, keeping an eye on the browning. The nuts should be ready when you can smell the nutty aroma.

2. Transfer roasted pistachios into a saucepan with heavy cream. Heat on medium heat until the cream just starts to bubble at the sides.

3. Remove saucepan from heat and blend the mixture until a thick paste forms.

4. Transfer the paste into a heatproof bowl and add salt, cocoa butter and white chocolate. Set it over a saucepan with freshly boiled water and mix with a spatula until all the white chocolate and cocoa butter are melted and incorporated.

5. Press a cling wrap on the surface of the ganache and refrigerate for 1 h or until firm but not rock hard. You may fill the macarons with this ganache as it is or you may whip it up with a spatula for a lighter texture.

Filling the shells! 

Packing these took quite some time too because there are so many!


Here's a picture of the dinosaurs at the party ๐Ÿ˜Š


With love,
Phay Shing

9 comments:

  1. Hi there, this is absolutely amazing!!!! Love your work and book!

    One question... Do you add any white colouring for the white parts in your macaron mixture or is it naturally that white?

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    Replies
    1. Thank you ๐Ÿ˜Š. Yes I add white food colouring for the white parts as well as for more pastel shades like the pastel pink

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  2. Thank you so much for that. Does this apply for the italian macarons too?

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    Replies
    1. Yes for all three types of meringues ๐Ÿ˜Š

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  3. May I know what is cocoa butter chips? Is that something easily available? Have not heard of that.
    Your work is wonderful. I have one of your book for beginners.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Melissa,

      It is something available at baking supply stores. Cocoa butter may be sold as blocks, shavings or chips and it is the base for making white chocolate but minus the sugar.
      Thank you for getting a copy of my book ๐Ÿ˜˜

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  4. This is very informative article. Thank you so much for sharing this information and ideas with us. You can buy from The Nut House USA.

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  5. Do you happen to have a link to these piping templates?

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  6. Hey there!

    Lovely dinasaurs. Where did you get the template to make them?

    ReplyDelete