Happy Holidays!
Surprise! Happy Holidays! Do you like it? The macarons? The Christmassy look?
My husband and I are terrible at doing Christmas decorations. In our years together we put up the Christmas tree one year and the next day our dogs had decided that it would be fun to eat the Christmas balls hanging from the tree AND THEN decided that it would be even more fun to tear down the whole tree and that was the end of that!
Another time, we decided to put up instead a little Christmas train that my Mom brought over from the Philippines. It was adorable, and almost 25 or so years old. It was one of those antique trains that played Jingle Bells when you turned it on, it had eight cars with different animals sitting them and they would move up and down like a carousel. When we turned it on we gave each other a big smile. It would really be a great Christmas! Alas, the joy lasted all of 30 seconds because then the train stopped working and a burning smell came from the train’s interior. We had plugged the train in a 220 volt socket when it was a 110 volt train!
These macarons decided to think outside the box! 🙂
And that was the end of our Christmas decorating story. Since then, we’ve never decorated our home! So this year I thought, since we aren’t going to be decorating our house – might as well decorate my blog – that way, dogs can’t chew on it and I can’t plug the blog anywhere and accidentally overload it! When guests come over and ask where the Christmas decor is, I’ll just pull up my laptop and show them my blog! A great way to promote my blog eh?! 🙂
The next in my Christmas Series is the Christmas Macaron. I tried to do something different with the macarons so I used two colours and some of them I experimented and piped them into squares. To get that two coloured effect, simply pipe using a thinner tip the outer edge and once done, pipe the inner portion using a thicker tip. I also flavoured these macarons with a white chocolate and mint ganache.
Perfect way to serve macarons in a Christmas party...
Ingredients
- 125 grams almond meal
- 150 grams icing sugar (not icing mixture)
- 100 grams caster sugar
- 100 grams egg whites (from around 3 eggs)
Procedure
- In a food processor grind the almond meal and icing sugar for around 5 minutes until very finely ground.
- Place the egg whites in an electric mixer and whip the whites until soft peaks
- Add the sugar, 50 grams at a time while the egg whites are being beaten.
- Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks.
- Fold the ground almond meal mixture into the egg white mixture in three additions until fully amalgamated.
- Pipe on to baking trays which have been lined with baking paper. Note: If you are using food colouring, add it now.
- Let the macarons dry for around 30 minutes until the “shells” are dry.
- Bake in a pre-heated oven (150c fan forced) for 15 minutes
Pipe the outer area with one colour and the inner with another
Mint Ganache
- 110 ml cream
- 10 grams sugar
- 30 grams fresh mint leaves
- 220 grams white chocolate
- Place the cream, sugar and mint leaves in a sauce pan and bring to a boil.
- Remove from the heat and leave to cool. Once cool, place in the refrigerator at least 4 hours to allow the flavours to infuse.
- Chop the white chocolate and microwave for around 45 seconds in 15 second intervals
- Reheat the cream and strain the cream and place in the bowl of white chocolate.
- Allow to cool and place in the refrigerator until ready to use.
To package, use either white paper boxes or Christmas designed disposable containers. A great idea for when your dogs decide to tear down your Christmas tree and you are left with Christmas ornaments? Use them for your packaging!
Wrap with paper boxes or containers
If you like it, please stumble it! 🙂
Trissalicious 