This time, I was sure to succeed. I bought Ogita’s book “I Love Macarons”, which is said to be the one of the best guides to make macarons and I really loved it, because it gives you a lot of different macaron options based on a “basic” recipe. It also has some very detailed instructions and I read all of them carefully to finally make some “real” macarons. OK, this is my third trial by now, and I have the worst looking macarons ever! They’re even uglier than the macarons I made by whisking the egg whites using my hand. Yeah, the macarons didn’t crack as the previous ones, but I couldn’t make the foot, or “pied” as the French call it. Ogita says if the batter is too dry, you cannot make the foot; but I don’t even know how I got the batter that dry. I didn’t even whisk the egg whites too much (that can make it dry). And what is worse, according to Ogita, my “things” are not even called macarons because she says: “Without it [pied], the pastry cannot be called a macaron.” So, I just call them macaron-ish-s or (non)macarons! Though these things taste good, in terms of looks the result is a big epic FAIL..

Whisking egg whites with granulated sugar. Everything seems to be normal:

Almond, powdered sugar and black tea:

Blending the two mixtures:

I’ve waited for 45 minutes and couldn’t see the macaron shells:

Crossing my fingers to see the “pied”:

I put them in a box anyway, because they were still delicious:

I was also hoping that it will help me save a lot of time making cakes and other pastry. But, I was such a fool to assume that KitchenAid will solve all my problems. Well, here’s the result:

What is that? I mean, they are as bad as my first macarons. I couldn’t create the “perfect foot”, although the consistency is okay. I managed not to crack them by resting the meringues for 1.5 hours to harden its shells, but what about the foot? It is not evenly distributed. The macarons were also stuck on the baking tray, and I couldn’t pick the macarons off. I thought I didn’t bake them enough, but when I rebaked them, they started to crack, so I stopped. And the baking temperature was OK too,  it was 160 degrees C (325 degrees C).

Anyways, I’m done with all this drama.. Let’s move on to the good news. 10 out of 25 macarons came out clean this time. What a success! Well, it’s at least better than the last time. And what’s more, these macarons taste SUPERB!!

I spent my whole Friday trying to make some flavored white-chocolate ganache. I made chocolate macarons using David Lebovitz’s recipe, and used fig and orange flavored white ganache to assemble the macarons (I simply added 1 orange’s zest orange flavored one, and 2 mashed fresh figs for the fig flavored one).

And as usual, there was some leftover ganache, and I made these mini raspberry cakes to use it. I also flavored the ganache with ground cinnamon. I liked the results, the cakes were delish and they also look good, huh?

Heart-Shaped Raspberry Cakes with White Chocolate & Cinnamon Ganache

makes 2 cakes

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups raspberries (I used frozen)
• 4 teaspoons baking soda
• a pinch of salt

For the ganache:

• 80 gr. (2.8 oz.) white chocolate
• 40 ml. (1/5 cup) heavy cream
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Mix together eggs, oil and sugar in a bowl. Add vanilla extract, flour, salt and baking soda and mix well.

Process the raspberries in a food processor, and add into the bowl.

Pour the mixture into a mid-size pan (Don’t worry at this stage that the mixture is not enough. It will rise). You can pour the mixture into heart-shaped molds (I cooked them first, and cut them in heart-shapes).

Bake for 40 minutes, or until it well cooked.

To make white-chocolate ganache, heat the cream until slightly hot. Remove the pot from heat. Add white chocolate, which are divided into small pieces. Make sure that the chocolate is totally melted, by stirring. After that, add the cinnamon. Mix well, and let cool in the refrigerator until hardened enough.

Assemble the two pieces of cake with ganache.