Birthday Macarons (Daring Bakers October Challenge)

I can run, but I can't hide. A wise friend told me that my 30's will be as great as my 20's, but with money. I like that!

In honor of my birthday, Daring Bakers made today the posting date for the October Challenge. Okay, not really, it is just a coincidence, but it's still pretty fun to post such a great recipe today!

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.


THE DARING COOKS OCTOBER 2009 CHALLENGE: MACAROONS

Introduction: Unless you’ve been frozen in permafrost for the past five years, you’ve likely noticed that cupcake bakeries have popped up all over like iced mushrooms. Knock one down, and three take its place. Much has been made about not only the cupcake’s popularity, but also its incipient demise as the sweet du jour. Since we seem to be a culture intent on the next sensation, pundits, food enthusiasts and bloggers have all wondered what this sensation might be. More than a few have suggested that French-style macaroons (called macarons in France) might supplant the cupcake. This may or may not come to pass, but the basic premise of the French macaroon is pretty damned tasty.

In the United States, the term “macaroon” generally refers to a cookie made primarily of coconut. But European macaroons are based on either ground almonds or almond paste, combined with sugar and egg whites. The texture can run from chewy, crunchy or a combination of the two. Frequently, two macaroons are sandwiched together with ganache, buttercream or jam, which can cause the cookies to become more chewy. The flavor possibilities and combinations are nigh endless, allowing infinitely customizable permutations.

I was excited for this challenge, but very intimidated. For such a simple recipe (egg whites, sugar, almond flour), it is extremely tempermental and will make you want to rip your hair out while you fling the fallen egg whites across the room, screaming "I HATE YOU STUPID MACARONS!"

That is, until you peak in the oven and discover that yours have grown "feet", the proper macaronage base, and then you're screaming "I MADE FEET! THEY HAVE FEET!"

see the little "feet" at the bottom?

All in all, I attempted 5 batches of French macarons. The only successful batch was the first one. The next 3 fell flat (like little pancakes) and the final one looked right, but the nut flour was rancid and they tasted terrible. I used walnuts that had been in the freezer for a while and they must have gone bad at some point. Ick.

Mariel and her roommate helped me bake and fill the successful batch with a simple chocolate ganache.

If I had more time and patience (and more egg whites), I might have tried a more complicated flavor of macaron with a different filling, like a buttercream. Some of the Daring Bakers got very creative with their flavors! They look fantastic.

I don't think I will ever make these again, as it's a little too ungapatch (Yiddish for fussy), even though the final product was delicious! Thanks for a really great baking challenge this month, DB! I can't wait to see what we're making for November.

Preparation time: Not taking into account the amount of time it takes for you to bring your egg whites to room temperature, the whole baking process, including making the batter, piping and baking will probably take you about an hour to an hour and a half. How long it takes to make your filling is dependent on what you choose to make.

Actual baking time: 12 minutes total, plus a few minutes to get your oven from 200°F to 375°F.

Equipment required:
• Electric mixer, preferably a stand mixer with a whisk attachment
• Rubber spatula
• Baking sheets
• Parchment paper or nonstick liners
• Pastry bag (can be disposable)
• Plain half-inch pastry bag tip
• Sifter or sieve
• If you don’t have a pastry bag and/or tips, you can use a Ziploc bag with the corner snipped off
• Oven
• Cooling rack
• Thin-bladed spatula for removing the macaroons from the baking sheets
• Food processor or nut grinder, if grinding your own nuts (ouch!)

Ingredients:
Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)
Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)
Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)
Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature. Most bakers will agree that the egg whites should be aged for about 3-5 days, in fridge, covered with paper towel).

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.

2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.

3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.

4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.

5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).

6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.

7. Cool on a rack before filling.

Yield: 10 dozen. Ami's note: My yield was much smaller than this. I produced about two dozen filled macaroons.

Additional Information:
David Lebovitz breaks it down: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2008/09/making_french_macarons.htm...
More macaroon 411: http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/10/introduction-to-french-macarons.html
Get inspired by our own Tartlette!: http://www.mytartelette.com/search/label/macarons
Go behind the scenes of Paulette: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXIvX0-CEu0

Anniversary Dinner Menu

For our 2nd anniversary celebration, I made us a nice homey dinner. We toasted 2 wonderful years with our new favorite wine, a rich and mellow Burgundy from Renault Winery in NJ. I know, Jersey wine? What? Trust me, it's delish!

Alex requested a simple roast chicken and I played around with some new side dishes. This roasted chicken recipe is my go-to choice, easy enough to throw together last minute on any type of chicken and it really highlights the natural flavors.

One side dish choice was inspired by a CSA gift from a friend - swiss chard! I had not had good swiss chard in a while, so I was looking forward to this. It's a nice and buttery green, with a unique flavor. It can be cooked in the same manner as spinach or kale, easy enough to saute up with some garlic and red pepper flakes.

Lastly, I tried a new potato dish that wasn't a 100% success, but I'm willing to try again because it has potential. Hasselback potatoes should be sliced veeeeeery thinly, but I was in a hurry and I think that impacted cooking time. Okay, I know that impacted cooking time! Overall, though, good flavor and easy enough to play around with!

Simple Roast Chicken

Ingredients:

8 pc chicken, rinsed and patted dry

Olive oil (about 1/4 cup, maybe less)

Dried rosemary, thyme, poultry seasoning (about 1-2 TBS each)

Garlic powder (optional)

Salt & pepper

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 425 and lightly spray a 9x13 baking dish. Place the chicken pieces inside, skin side down, making sure they are in a single layer.

Pour the olive oil and spices into a small bowl and mix well. Using a basting brush, coat each piece of chicken with the oil mixture, and then flip and repeat. They should be skin side up when they go into the oven. Bake for 30-35 minutes, basting once or twice, or until chicken is 165 degrees inside.

Allow to rest 10 minutes before serving.

Hasselback Potatoes

Ingredients:

Baking potatoes (one per person)

Olive oil, to coat potatoes (about 2 tsp per potato)

Garlic cloves, sliced very thinly

Salt & pepper

Other spices optional (rosemary, thyme, etc)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 450. Lay two wooden spoons down next to each other on a cutting board and place the potato in between the handles. Using a knife, cut thin slices into the potato, but use the spoon handles as a guide to make sure you don't cut all the way through.

Place a slice of garlic in between each potato layer and sprinkle with salt & pepper. Pour olive oil over each potato, rubbing it in well. Put potatoes into a shallow baking dish and bake for about 35-45 minutes, until they are done. Might take longer, depending on your oven.

Sauteed Swiss Chard

adapted from Simply Recipes

Ingredients:

1 large bunch of fresh Swiss chard
1 small clove garlic, sliced
2 TBS olive oil
2 TBS water
Pinch of dried crushed red pepper (really, no more! It's pretty spicy with just a pinch!)
Salt

Instructions:
Rinse out the Swiss chard leaves thoroughly. Remove the toughest third of the stalk, discard or save for another recipe. Roughly chop the leaves into inch-wide strips.

Heat a saucepan on a medium heat setting, add olive oil, a few small slices of garlic and the crushed red pepper. Sauté for about a minute. Add the chopped Swiss chard leaves. Cover.

Check after about 5 minutes. If it looks dry, add a couple tablespoons of water. Flip the leaves over in the pan, so that what was on the bottom, is now on the top. Cover again.

Check for doneness after another 5 minutes (remove a piece and taste it). Add salt to taste and serve.

Veggie Pumpkin Chili

I. LOVE. FALL.

Love it love it love it. It's the best season, in my humble opinion, for indulging all of the senses. I love to see the leaves change from green to fiery reds and oranges, hear the dried leaves crunch under my feet and the wind pound at our little house, smell the woodsmoke and hints of fall and snow in the air, feel the chill that means I get to pull out my sweaters and down comforter, and I love to taste the flavors of autumn - apple, cinnamon, clove, maple, nutmeg, squash, and most especially...pumpkin.

There was a rumor of the Great Pumpkin Shortage of 2009, so whenever I saw a can of Libby's Pumpkin, I grabbed it. Now, I have 6 cans of pumpkin in the pantry and I'm so excited. The first new pumpkin recipe was inspired by one of the cooking blogs that I follow religiously, but I'm usually too intimidated to make anything! Cara's recipes are really creative and she's a very healthy gal. She's got great ideas for healthy substitutes and always posts the nutritional information for each recipe, which I really appreciate!

The original recipe called for ground turkey, but I wanted to keep it vegetarian so we could add cheese/sour cream, etc. Overall, it's a different chili than we were used to. The flavors were more mellow, but that could have been from a chili powder shortage in our pantry. I used one whole packet of seasoning, and about another tsp of chili powder, but I don't think it was enough. The flavor is slightly sweet and a little smokey (thanks to the chipotles!) and the heat follows a few seconds later.

You might scoff at the idea of pumpkin in chili, but it makes for a wonderful velvety texture. This is really thick chili and the pumpkin added a slight (really very slight) touch of sweetness. I think that next time, I'll eliminate the cinnamon and add more chili powder. It's perfect for a cold night, ready to warm you up inside! A great fall meal.

Veggie Pumpkin Chili

adapted from Cara's Cravings

Ingredients:

1 cup chopped onion

3 cloves of garlic, minced

2 medium sized peppers, diced

1 small butternut squash, peeled, seeded and diced

2-3 TBS chili powder I

2-3 tsp cumin

1 tsp cinnamon

1 small can diced green chili peppers

1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, carefully seeded and minced

15 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed

15 oz can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1/2 cup frozen corn kernels

28 oz can crushed tomatoes

14 oz can diced tomatoes (I used the kind with chili peppers already added)

15 oz can pumpkin puree

Instructions:

Spray a large pot with nonstick cooking spray and place over medium heat. Add the onions and cook for about 5 minutes, until just softened. Add the garlic and bell peppers, and cook about 5 minutes more until tender.

Season with salt, pepper, chili powder, chipotle, cumin, and cinnamon. Stir in remaining ingredients, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 45 minutes to blend flavors. Make sure that the butternut squash is fork-tender. If not, simmer some more.

Make this the day before serving in order to allow the flavors time to develop. Serve with your favorite chili toppings - cilantro, green onion, cheese, sour cream, etc.

Sweet Potatoes for 2 Sweet Years

Happy Anniversary to my best kitchen taste-tester, Alex. 2 years of love and laughter and you make every day better. I love you.


So these Sweet Potato Biscuits weren't really in honor of 2 sweet years, but it was the best way I could tie the blog postings together. This TWD recipe was chosen by Erin, of Prudence Pennywise.

The flavor of these were spot on - sweet and spicy, with the potato highlighted by nutmeg and cinnamon. The only problems were that they didn't rise as much as other biscuits I've made, and even after 22 minutes in the oven, they were slightly underdone. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but I blame a lack of kitchen mojo. I'd been working on my third attempt of the Daring Bakers October Challenge (to be revealed next week!) and I think I was tapped out.

I would like to make these biscuits again, but I'll try someday when I feel that my oven will be my friend, not my frenemy.

TWD: Split Level Pudding

It's pudding! No, it's chocolate ganache! No, it's pudding! Wait...it's both! Garrett of the Flavor of Vanilla chose this simple yet elegant dessert for our weekly Dorie recipe. Creamy and velvety vanilla custard layered over dark and rich chocolate ganache.

One of the other bakers suggested using wine glasses so that you could see the actual layers and I loved this idea. I also added a little espresso to the vanilla custard so it was a mocha split level pudding. It's a lovely suprise to find chocolate waiting for you at the bottom of the glass. I'm not a big fan of suprises, but this one, I could definitely handle.