Gingerbread Man Macarons with Gingerbread Cookie Dough Buttercream

One baking blog I've been following for some time is Raspberri Cupcakes.  Everything she does is amazing, but I especially love her crazily shaped macarons.  She's done all kinds of animals, ice cream cones, shamrocks, presents, hearts and more.  She also writes about a delicious-sounding cookie dough buttercream which I was keen to use in a macaron.  One of my most reliable and delicious cookie recipes is my Gingerbread Cookie Dough recipe (I'm sure I'll put it up here sooner or later).  Whenever I make them I have to force myself to stop eating the raw dough.  So, I had a go at combining the cookie dough buttercream with my gingerbread cookie recipe to put together these ultra cute Gingerbread Man Macarons with Gingerbread Cookie Dough Buttercream.

I used my basic macaron shell recipe to make the gingerbread men.  I meant to colour the shells with Parisian Browning Essence, except I forgot to add it to the sugar (second time this week I've done that!!).  I didn't want to stuff up my egg whites by adding too much liquid, so I just put in a few drops of the browning essence meaning I didn't get as deep a brown as I was hoping for.

It was my first time piping shapes, so I used a slightly smaller nozzle on my piping bag and drew some gingerbread man outlines on my baking paper.  I ended up undermixing my batter which made my men a little bumpy, but at least they all held their shape.

Gingerbread Cookie Dough Buttercream

Adapted from Raspberri Cupcakes

55g butter, cubed and softened
6 tbs firmly packed brown sugar
135g plain flour
180g sweetened condensed milk
1/4 tsp vanilla essence
1 - 2 tsp ginger (to taste)
2 tbs golden syrup
1/2 cup icing sugar

Beat the butter and brown sugar in a mixer until light and fluffy.  Add remaining ingredients and mix for 3-4 minutes until well combined.  Leave in the fridge to set for 20 minutes or so.

Be sure to not add garam masala to your buttercream instead of ginger like I did...  My fault for seeing the "G" on the packet and assuming I had the right spice.  I scraped as much as I could out of the mixture, but the slightly strange spicy flavour tells me that I didn't quite get it all out.  It's still a delicious buttercream and tastes just like the bits of cookie dough I nibble on whenever I make Gingerbread Cookies.  The decorations are done with a very basic royal icing made of egg white and icing sugar mixed together until a stiff consistency is reached.

They're a little too cute to eat!  Fortunately I made some round macarons too, so I can indulge on those instead of beheading one of my little macaron men.

Choc-Malt Macarons

I LOVE Maltesers.  The chocolate, the malt, the crunch...yum!  So what could be better than combining my two loves to make Choc-Malt Macarons?

I wanted these macarons to give the same experience as eating a Malteser - smooth melty milk chocolate, followed by the crunch of the malt, but I didn't want to cheat by using actual Maltesers.  I read online that you can make your own malted milk balls by combining malt power with white chocolate, rolling it into balls, freezing them, then dip them into melted chocolate.  I used this technique to make malt discs large enough to cover the surface of the macaron shell.  Ganache is generally made with dark chocolate, but again I wanted to preserve the taste of Maltesers, so I used milk chocolate instead.  Click here for the basic macaron shell recipe.

Crunchy Malted Milk Filling

125g white chocolate

4tbs malt powder

Melt the chocolate over a double-boiler or in the microwave.  Mix in malt powder.  Once the mixture is combined, take a handful and press onto a flat surface until it is about 5mm thick (you could probably use a rolling pin but I just used my fingers).  Using a 3cm cookie cutter (or anything else round) cut out circles of the mixture.  Place the circles onto a tray lined with baking paper and freeze for a few hours.  I also sprinkled some of the crumbled mixture all over the baking paper before freezing, as I wanted to try two different techniques for including the malt into the macaron.

Milk Chocolate Ganache

100mL cream

250g milk chocolate chips

Place the cream in a medium saucepan over low heat.  Just as bubbles begin to appear, pour the hot cream over the choc chips and stir until melted.  Refrigerate until set.

Once the discs and crumbles are hard, pipe chocolate ganache onto one macaron shell, place the malt disc (or crumbles) over the chocolate, then pipe a small amount of extra chocolate ganach before sandwiching another shell on top.  I chose to dust cocoa on top for decoration.

The "disc" macarons really do give that sensation of biting into a Malteser.  First you gently bite into the soft macaron shell, then you taste the smooth, rich chocolate, then you crunch into crisp malt in the middle.  Admittedly, it's not quite the same level of "crunchiness" that Maltesers have (I think Maltesers go though some sort of vacuum process to get the bubbly crispiness) but it's still exciting to experience that many textures in such a tiny morsel.  Having said that, I actually think the "crumble" macarons look a whole lot more special.  They look like they're going to be fun to eat.  They look like they should be served at a party or somewhere exciting.  But they don't have that same contrast in texture as the "disc" macarons.  I guess you have to decide what you want more - textures or prettiness.  Or you can be like me and make both.

Anyhoo, I hereby dub Choc-Malt Macarons a roaring success.  They have also received the seal of approval from Brendan, who thinks they may even taste better than his all-time favourite Peanut-Butter Choc Macarons.  Who needs Maltesers when you can make your own in macaron form?

Turkish Delight Macarons with Pashmak (Persian Fairy Floss)

School holidays have come and have brought with them plenty of macaron inspiration!  I can't believe it's already Thursday and I'm only just getting my first batch of macarons up and running.  Well, despite a slow start, I'm hoping to get right on track and try all sorts of baking experiments.  First up: Turkish Delight Macarons.

To be perfectly honest, the main reason I wanted to try Turkish delight macarons was so I had a reason to buy pashmak, otherwise known as Persian Fairy Floss.  Okay, I know, Perisan Fairy Floss and Turkish Delight are from two separate countries, but it's all kind of the same area, right?  Anyway, I've always wanted to try pashmak, and Turkish delight macarons seemed like a good accompaniment.  Pashmak isn't something you buy to eat on it's own, it's more of a garnish to add prettiness and excitement to desserts.  My vision was to make some cute little pink macarons and finish them off with a swirl of pashmak on top.

I made a basic white batter but tried out this technique to get the pink swirly effect on some of the shells.  I also used the toothbrush splatter technique on a different tray to get a cute pink speckled look.  I left a few trays just plain white.

Once that was done, it was time to tackle the Turkish delight.  That's when things got a little crazy.  In my head I wanted to make some sort of flat tray of Turkish delight and then cut out disc shapes with a cookie cutter to sandwich between the two shells.  I googled some Turkish delight recipes and ended up trying not one, not two, but three different versions.  Yes, you read correctly.  I needed to try three different times, and still wasn't 100% satisfied.  But here's what happened anyway...

My first attempt at making Turkish delight came from here and turned out like this:

Yeah...I know, right?  It looked like a cross between vegemite and tree sap.  Poor Brendan even stood over the stove for an hour stirring, and it STILL failed.  Plus my beautiful Tupperware silicone spatula is now stained. Not to worry, I decided to give it another go, this time with a microwave recipe.  Apparently this one wasn't technically Turkish delight, because it used gelatine to set rather than a starch.  It ended up looking okay...

...but it didn't taste so good.  It was alright at first, but I was left with a really floury aftertaste.  I didn't want to ruin a perfectly good batch of macaron shells by filling them with sticky cornflour.  Trying not to think about all the ingredients I had already wasted, I decided to give it one more try using this recipe.  It wasn't too bad in the end.

Aside from the fact that I added a bit too much rosewater essence, the flavour was quite nice.  It may have had a texture like Clag glue, which threw my cookie cutter idea out the window, but it wasn't so bad in the end as it meant I could pipe the mixture straight onto the macaron shells.

The finishing touch was the pashmak.  I only put it on top of the white shells, but it actually enhanced the flavour and made them taste so much better, so I think it's worth serving with all the shells, not just the whites.  The pashmak is so deliciously delicate and so stunning to look at on its own that when paired with macarons it brings the entire dish to a whole new level.  It was exciting for me just to plate it up, let alone eat it!

I would definitely make these again, especially if I was going to some sort of Middle-Eastern-themed event, but I think next time I'll just buy the Turkish delight and either cut it or pipe it onto the shells.  Although I was happy with the flavour of my third Turkish delight attempt, I still think the store-bought stuff tastes better (especially the one they sell at Kakulas Sister!!!)  I'll be looking for other ways to incorporate pashmak into my cooking, too.  It's hideously expensive ($15 a pack) but now that I have some, a little seems to go a long way.  I still have most of the packet left, and it seems to last a while in an airtight container.  Has anyone else had more success than me in making Turkish delight?  Can you think of other ways to use pashmak?