Saturday 14 September 2013

Rocky Road Macarons


 
I was almost too ashamed to write this post for fear that everyone would see how long it's been since I last blogged.  I knew it had been a while, but really?  October 2012?  How did I go 11 months without posting a blog?  More to the point, how did I go that long without baking macarons???

In my defense, a LOT has happened since last October.  I had a baby for one thing.  And I guess with pregnancy, working, staging The Wizard of Oz, supporting Brendan and the Unichurch plant, giving birth and learning to use my new Thermomix, there just hasn't been any time for baking.  How embarrassing.

So when a friend asked me to bake macarons for a lunch get-together tomorrow, I was more than happy to have a reason to get back in the kitchen to make something other than dinner.

I've had this vision in my head for a while now to make one of those chocolate cakes with a chocolate finger biscuit border that you see all over Pinterest, except filling the top with a mish-mash of rocky road bits.  I needed to make macarons for Sunday, so Brendan, in the style of Old El Paso, suggested, "Why not have both?"


I guess since it was hubby's idea to make the macarons in the first place, I can forgive him for nearly sabotaging the entire effort. After waking up at 7 to give our bubba boy his morning feed, I put him back to sleep (yes, we have a super baby.  He sleeps 10 hours, has a feed, then sleeps 2 more), I sacrificed my Saturday sleep-in so I could bake without distraction.  While the macarons were in the oven, baby Ethan needed another feed, so I asked Brendan if he could put the last two trays in the oven for me.  I gave very explicit instructions, one on the top shelf, one on the bottom shelf, nothing in the middle, put the hot tray on the stove, etc, etc, but failed to mention that the trays of uncooked macarons were sitting on the table at the other end of the house (I keep my trays there while they wait for the oven so they don't clutter the kitchen.)  My lovely, helpful husband unfortunately didn't read my mind, and instead of looking for the trays of raw macaron batter, he saw two trays that were already cooked and put them back in the oven for another 16 minutes.  Sigh...  We both agreed that each of us were partially responsible, but secretly I was thinking to myself "really?  Pretty sure a trained monkey would have known that tray was already baked".  Brendan is very patient.  He let me have my moment, he let me breathe deeply, close my eyes and say "I'm not angry at you, I'm just angry", but I'm pretty sure he was secretly thinking "really?  THIS is what makes you angry?  Two trays of overcooked macarons?  First world problems much??"

Anyhoo, on with the baking.


I started with just regular ol' pink macaron shells, but instead of filling them with a traditional ganache, I added in a cup of minimarshmallows, hoping to get a bit of the marshmallow flavour in with the chocolate.  I used my Thermomix for this (I still needed my old faithful Kenwood Chef for the whipping of the egg whites though - speed 4 on the Thermo just doesn't cut it for Italian meringue) by combining 250g dark chocolate, 200g cream and a heaped cup of mini marshmallows at 50C for 4 minutes on speed 3.

When it came to filling the shells, I piped a blob of ganache on the bottom shell, sprinkled some chopped nuts on the ganache, then piped a small amount of ganache on the inside of the top shell before sandwiching them together.  (The ganache on the top shell isn't normally necessary but I needed to make sure the shells still stuck together even with nuts covering the ganache.)

Then came the fun part!


I decided my rocky road would be made out of mini marshmallows, small slices of raspberry licorice, chopped nuts and milk chocolate.  I piped another small blob of ganache on top of my assembled macarons, arranged three marshmallows and three licorice slices on the ganache, drizzled the tops with melted chocolate and sprinked nuts on top.  Too easy!  Perhaps one day I'll make the marshmallows and licorice myself, but for now, I'll stick with what's convenient.


I have to say, I'm pretty chuffed with how they turned out.  Brendan and I agree - they are the most delicious flavour combo I've come up with (well, Brendan thinks he can take the credit since it was his idea).  It's probably a good thing I only had half a batch to work with.  Because I need to take every single one with me when we go to lunch tomorrow, there aren't any leftovers for us to nibble on - I can guarantee you, they wouldn't last long otherwise.