My friend requested for some nut-free rainbow unicorn macarons. Since St Patrick's Day is just around the corner, I threw in some shamrock and rainbow cloud macarons as well for photography!
I made nut-free macarons before using a mix of rice flour and pumpkin seed flour, as well as cake flour. This time round I needed a pure white base so I can't use pumpkin seed. Wheat-based flour is a convenient alternative. The last attempt of wheat flour-based macarons were made using french method. This time round I use swiss method.
Cake flour based nut-free macaron recipe
Ingredients (makes about 40 - 50 macarons) :
Mass
200g cake flour (low protein wheat flour)
200g icing sugar (mine has cornstarch added)
80g egg whites
1 tsp white powder colouring (optional)
Gel food colouring
Swiss Meringue
145g caster sugar
40g icing sugar
110g egg whites
1 tsp egg white powder (optional)
1/2 tsp cream of tartar (optional)
Steps:
1. Prepare template and line baking tray with parchment paper.
2. Prepare the mass. Sift together dry ingredients in the mass. Add egg whites to form a thick paste. Cover with cling wrap and set aside.
3. Make swiss meringue. Whisk together egg white powder, icing sugar and caster sugar. Add the sugar mix and cream of tartar into egg whites in standmixer bowl (or clean metal mixing bowl if using handheld mixer). Set bowl over saucepan of water. Heat the water over low heat and whisk the egg whites with sugar mix until temperature reaches about 50C. Take your time to heat up the water to ensure all sugar is dissolved.
4. Transfer to standmixer and whip on medium speed until firm peak. The meringue peak should be fairly straight with a small curl at the end when you slowly lift the beater.
5. Fold in about a third of the meringue into the mass and mix well thoroughly. Fold in the rest of meringue until just combined. Split into the various rainbow colours and add the respective gel colouring. Fold until the consistency is correct. The batter should fall off the spatula in a continuous manner and any peaks of batter disappear in about 15 seconds.
6. Transfer batter into piping bag and pipe the unicorns. Let the piped batter rest until it isn't sticky to touch at all. Duration of resting depends on humidity. It can vary from 30min to 2 hours.
Piped batter. Takes about an hour to pipe a tray!
7. Preheat oven to 165C and set oven rack to second lowest position. Once the tray is in, reduce temperature to 140C and bake for 10-12 min. Reduce temperature to 120C and bake for another 10-12 min or until feet doesn't appear wet. Cool completely before peeling parchment paper away from macaron shell.
Freshly baked shells!
I decorated the shells with black edible marker and peach coloured lustre dust. A little vodka is used to make paint with black marker for the light horn lines and with lustre dust for the heart shaped inner ear and cheek.
Pandan coconut white chocolate buttercream
Ingredients:
75g unsalted butter
90g white chocolate (finely chopped or use chips)
12g 100% dark chocolate couverture (may replace with white chocolate and/or butter if unavailable)
38g coconut cream powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 and 1/4 tsp pandan paste
Steps:
1. Place all ingredients in a heatproof bowl. Set over pot of freshly boiled water without the water touching the base of the bowl. Melt the chocolate and butter and mix well.
2. Set aside in aircon room temperature for an hour to firm up. Alternatively, refrigerated for 10 to 15 min or until toothpaste consistency. You may choose to whip the mixture until it is lighter in texture.
3. Transfer to piping bag and fill the macaron shells. Mature the filled macarons by storing in fridge in airtight container for at least 24 h before consuming. Let the container stay at room temperature for 20 min before opening and consuming the macarons.
Filling the unicorns!
Follow me on Instagram @phay_shing as I post my work more frequently there and not everything I do gets posted on the blog.
With love,
Phay Shing
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