a whisk and a spoon

Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Parisian Macarons

Someone’s getting fancy over here. Parisian Macarons require a bit more technique and attention than the usual loaf cakes I churn out in five minutes without really even measuring. I’ve spent most of my pastry career in fine dining, so really I’ve piped countless trays of these almond flour-meringue cookies for petits fours plates, but for the last several years, I’ve been focused on tempered chocolate work. I do think maybe the last time I made macs was circa 2007, when I worked for a restaurant called Becasse in Sydney. What I’m trying to say is that I am rusty.

This macaron recipe from BCM uses an Italian meringue in the batter, as opposed to a French meringue, which is what I am more used to. I didn’t have any problems making that, although I was tempted to just eat it as marshmallow fluff and jump ship on the macarons…that is the danger of Italian and Swiss meringues. I’m actually really pleased with how the macarons turned out, but I’d say I wish the bottom “feet” had been a bit taller. Mardi and I agree that the listed baking temp of 350F is hotter than most recipes, and that may have had something to do with it. If I make this recipe again, I’m going to experiment with a 300-325F oven, which is more standard, and see if that makes a difference. I did leave my assembled macs in the fridge overnight (those are the rules!), and they were perfectly crispy- chewy for a few days after.

The thing I do really like about macs is that you can totally customize them. You can fill them with ganache, like I did here, or with jam, caramel, buttercream, or whatever floats your boat and makes them stick.  You can sub some of the almond flour for another nut flour, or tint the shells any color of the rainbow. I left them au naturale, preferring to get my daily dose of food coloring in the form of a scattering of sprinkles.

For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

TWD BCM Rewind: Vanilla-Bean Sablés (with anise hyssop)

I feel like we make sablés right and left, but I realized I’d never made the most basic Vanilla-Bean Sablés from BCM (even though I’ve wondered many times why it’s “vanilla-bean” with a hyphen). Since we are pretty close to finishing off this book, I thought I should get on it. I should also get on with Babas au Rhum and Cannelés, but they are more challenging than I’m up to right now. Cookies for Rewind Week it is!

I had a little bunch of anise hyssop that I was paying around with on the day I made these, so I worked some buds into the recipe’s sugar to release it’s flavor. I put some more buds on top of the cookies before baking, although they sort of wound up looking like mini broccoli florets. Dorie has these as regular slice-and-bake cookies in this book, but I’ve learned some lessons from Dorie’s Cookies and I popped my dough disks into muffin tins, so they’d be uniformly round. These are what I’d expected— nice, buttery, sandy treats.

For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll to see other Rewind make-ups!

Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Olive Oil and Wine Cookies

These Olive Oil and Wine Cookies are kind of a cousin to the Canistrelli we made a few weeks ago. They hail from the south of France, where olive oil is more widely used than butter. I used a sweet white wine in the dough that was actually homemade by someone I know…please don’t tell, but it’s better to bake with than it is to drink…haha. I don’t think I got the dough shaping down here. They are supposed to have chubby middles and tapered, pinched ends but mine look a little wonky. No matter, they baked up crunchy and made good coffee dunking treats anyway (although TBH, I liked the Canistrelli a bit better for their anise flavor).

For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!