Funky Monkey Macarons

This month's MacTweets Challenge comes hot on the heels of my trip to Food Blogger Connect, in London. It was an incredible trip, one of the best things being tha I finally got to meet a few of my fellow MacTweeters like Cecilia with her One Vanilla Bean, Bethany and all of her Dirty Kitchen Secrets, Pam a.k.a. the Cooking Ninja, Sarah, who lives at the fabulous Maison Cupcake, the fabulous Mowie of Mowielicious fame, and the darling Meeta, who asks What's For Lunch Honey? In anticipation of this trip, however, I was most excited to finally meet the brilliant Jamie, one of our fearless MacTweets leaders, who writes beautiful stories about how Life's A Feast - and she is just as sweet and kind as I had hoped she would be.

For this month's challenge, Jamie & Deeba (who was unable to attend FBC) challenged us to "Walk on the Wild Side" with our wild animal inspired macarons. I have to admit, I was a bit stumped by this one for a while, if only because I don't always associate many wild animals with my food. If only I had seen this beautiful fella, sitting in the lobby of the Hempel Hotel in London, before I made my macs (he's the perfect embodiment of this challenge!)

A few days before I left for the conference, hubby was called away for a business trip, which meant I was on my own for a few days. Typical of moest people, we each have our different food likes & dislikes, and when we are apart, we tend to indulge in the things the other hates. When I am out of town, hubby gets to enjoy all the soup he wants (that's right - I'm a freak, I hate soup. Even the smell of it makes me gag), and when I'm on my own, I go and get myself a few bananas for simple treats like bananas & cream (a childhood fav), banana bread or bananas foster over ice cream. Spying them sitting on the counter one night, inspiration struck and the Funky Monkey Macaron was born...

I whipped up a batch of chocolate macaron shells, which turned out quite pale compared to previous batches of chocolate macs, and then got to work on making a delicious banana pastry cream for the filling. I dug through all of my recipe books, looking at recipes for banana cream pie, but every recipe simply layered slices of banana in the pastry cream-filled shell. This was not what I was looking for, so I decided to just add a single mashed banana to my favourite pastry cream recipe. That's when I discovered why the pie is made with slices... pastry cream with a banana blended in does not set up. I learned the hard way that the custard that normally firms up just enough to stay in place in a pie shell or pâte à choux becomes a delicious but runny mess when you add a mashed banana. I'll try making it again, adjusing the recipe to see if I can get it to gel, or if all else fails, next time hubby's out of town and I bake with bananas, I'll just blend them into chocolate ganache, or else take a lesson from Pierre Herme and add a tiny piece of banana in the centre.

So while they may not have turned out quite as pretty as I had hoped, they did turn out to be quite yummy. If anyone out there has a recipe for a tasty banana filling that actually sets up, I invite you to give this one a try, and let me know how it works out for you.

The recipes for both the macaron shells and the basic, non runny pastry cream can both be found in previous posts on this blog. Just click on the link and it will take you there!

Piece Montée -also known as Croquembouche

Even the name sounds yummy.... cro-kemmmmmmm-booooooooshhhhh.

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri. I was super excited when I this month's challenge, for a bunch of reasons...

1. I won't have to make anyone cry with my Daring Bakers' Challenge this month
2. It's French, and I adore all things French
3. I *love* pastry cream filled choux - one of the tastiest things on the planet in my opinion.
4. I am a stickler for real, honest-to-goodness, made-from-scratch pastry cream, and not powdered vanilla pudding.
5. I have made this dessert before (for my sis-in-law's wedding), and have always wanted to try it again, because I wanted to perfect it (word of advice - don't try and make/assemble a never-before-made dessert for 150 people an hour before you're supposed to beat a wedding, dressed-up and not covered in chocolate. Oh - and maybe make sure you have enough little choux to actually finish the piece montée, so you don't have to lop off the top and end up with a croquembouche that looks like this ------>)
6. I love French desserts.  Pretty much all things French, actually, but my absolute favourite are French things you can eat.
7. I've always wanted to do the proper spun caramel technique for it (you can guess why that didn't happen the first time - no time, and it's even less attractive to show up at a wedding with molten sugar burns on your arms)
8. It's stunning AND delicious, and that's a pretty killer combo in my books
9. It's FRENCH... wait, did I already say that?

So, first of all, I'm a little bummed that April's & May's DB challenges weren't switched, because I had a dozen events in April that this would have been perfect for, and I have none of those in May.  While I love girly, pretty French things, most of my co-workers are more...ummm (how do I say this?) ....they're more not into girly, pretty French things.  A big culture shock for me was to go from working in an industry with mostly women and a lot of gay men, to working with very few women and a lot of men who aren't even all that comfortable being around gay men.  So bringing this in for what have now become known in the office as "Baking Mondays", well, it won't get quite the same level of appreciation a dessert like this deserves.  (but boy oh boy, it would have at the flower shop...)

Anyway... I sat down with a good cup of coffee and began reading all about the challenge - no sweat, I can totally do this.  When it came time to actually make it however, I gave it a second read and noticed that "You must use the recipe provided for the the pate a choux batter however".  Sure thing, Cat, not a problem.  Your recipe doesn't look all that different from the recipe I normally... wait a second....NO MILK???????  Oh great, here we go again......

You may recall my recent, still-very-fresh-in-my-mind, battle with brioche and recipes that omit crucial ingredients.  Namely: milk.  Well, as soon as I saw this recipe used only water, I began going over and over the recipe, looking for some hint that this was a typo.  Nope, just water.  Hmm.  Ok (here's where I owe Little Miss Cupcake an apology ), I googled pâte à choux recipes to see if this was in fact an accurate version of the recipe.  Huge sigh of relief when I found several other recipes that were sans le lait.  whew!  Carry on.

I started out by making my pastry cream - exactly the same one I made for my Perfect Chocolate Éclairs. Tried and true and tasty.  Once the pastry cream was chilling in the fridge, I took a deep breath and started on my batch of choux.  Much to my delight, it worked and behaved exactly like the recipe I usually use avec le  lait, so I was worried for no reason.  My piping skills have even improved  considerably, thanks to the techniques Mardi at Eat.Live.Travel.Write. shared from her macarons class at Lenôtre.  (my piping skills really needed still need work - I've graduated to the lever where I can pipe blobs now... not much else).  Into the oven my petit choux blobs went.  When the timer finally went off, I took a deep breath and looked in the oven.  They were beautiful - I would have to say they were even bigger than mine normally are, so maybe milk-less is the way to go.  Filling them up with that lovely pastry cream didn't take very long, which meant I was soon ready to move on to the next step.

The Caramel.  I have made caramel sauce before - many times in fact - and each time seems to be a bit different.  But this isn't caramel sauce - this is just caramelized sugar.  That's all.  No water or added cream or vanilla or butter.  Just sugar.  However, one thing you should know about me is that I am a complete woos when it comes to the idea of burning myself, and playing with molten sugar scares the bejeezus out of me.  But I persevere, in hopes that eventually I will be able to do it and not hold find myself holding my breath the whole time - cuz that only makes you lightheaded and dizzy, which *significantly* increases your chances of getting a 3rd degree sugar burn.  Also, one of my goals for this year is to improve my caramel and sugar caramelizing skills (stay tuned for future posts and you'll get to see how that turns out).  This was as good a time as any to get in some practice time, right?  Besides, if you're going to participate in a baking "challenge" then there should be some aspect of it that challenges you.  (yeesh - that sounds more conceited than intended - let me elaborate)  Yes, so far I've lucked out two months in a row with DB Challenges that I already have experience making, but I also believe that luck is going to run out soon.  

So, given my inexperience working with just plain old melted sugar, I was a little apprehensive.  But, I took a deep breath, put some sugar in a cooper pot and lit the burner.  While keeping a very steady eye on my pot of liquifying sugar, I began roughly "dry-fitting" together the pieces for my first layer of the croquembouche, preparing in advance so I would know where to put the little choux once it was covered with hot caramel.  Pretty soon, the sugar was just beyond the point when it starts to smoke, so I plunged the pot into a bowl of ice water to halt the cooking process, and quickly got to work.  Maybe this was the prefect dessert to help me get over my fear of molten sugar, I was so distracted with all of the fitting together the choux blob puzzle, that I completely forgot to be freaked out.  Before I knew it, I had two full layers done and had zero burns!  WooHoo!  This is cool!  Now I can see why they use this as pastry glue for those amazing pieces they make on tv.  It's awesome!

Another thing I learned was why the croquembouche is traditionally covered in a halo of spun sugar.  Because a frothy veil of golden caramel acts as a really good cover for the mess.  You're not exactly going to use your finger to wipe away any smears or drips of 200˚ sugar, and I certainly had a lot of drips and oozes happening.  So, while I was glueing together my piece montée, I asked hubby to take one of my very large whisks and sacrifice it for the spun sugar cause.  Well, it took a little more tweaking after he trimmed off the rounded top of the whisk - he had to also bend the individual wires back out a bit, as they immediately collapsed on one another once they were cut.  Full of caramelly confidence, I was excited to give my "new" toy a try, and dipped the wire whisk into to the hot caramel, lifted it above the completed tower of choux and proceeded to spray hot sugar onto every surface in my kitchen while almost nothing landed on the croquembouche.  Awesome.  I went back for another attempt, but didn't fare any better the second time.  I abandoned that idea and figured that would be a lesson for another day.  I did, however, play around a bit on some parchment paper and made a caramel Tour Eiffel for a decoration.  Because after all, it's FRENCH!

So here you have it - my Piece Montée, complete with caramel.  Thanks so much to Cat (whom I should hate, simply because she lives in Paris and I don't), I had a blast making this, and you helped me face my fear of molten sugar, and I even survived unscathed!  ZERO burns to show for it!  YAY!

Pâte à Choux (sans le lait)

(Yield: About 28) - I ended up with 40
¾ cup (175 ml.) water
6 Tbsp. (85 g.) unsalted butter
¼ Tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 cup (125 g.) all-purpose flour
4 large eggs

(directions are exactly the same as they are for my "Perfect Chocolate Éclair" post, which is also where you will find my recipe for REAL Pastry Cream)

Caramel aka Molten Sugar Glue

1 Cup (200g) sugar
Put the sugar in a heavy-bottomed saucepan, and place over medium heat.  Keep a watchful eye om the sugar, and as the crystals begin to melt and darken, gently stir (using a silicone spatula only) the sugar to move the dry sugar to the bottom to even the cooking.  As the entire pot of sugar melts and begins to darken, it will begin to smoke.  Once it begins smoking, immediately plunge the bottom of the pot into a bowl of ice water to halt the cooking process.  If, while you are assembling your piece montée, the pot of caramel begins to harden and become difficulty to work with, simply return it over a medium flame on the stove until it melts to the proper consistency again.  Repeat as needed.

The Perfect Chocolate Éclair

If there's one thing my sister and I have a weakness for, it's cream.  Thick, luxurious, sweet heavy cream.  We've each been guilty of pouring straight heavy cream onto our morning cereal (why waste your time with milk?).  Growing up, a bowl of sliced bananas or strawberries with cream and a sprinkling of sugar was (and still is) comfort food for us both.  Whipped cream was served with so many desserts in our house that it was first 'recipe' I ever learned to make.  I have no idea how old I was at the time, but I have very distinct memories of standing on a chair pulled up to the counter and holding onto that hand mixer to make puffy clouds of sweetness from chilled cream and sugar.  Some of my favourite dessert memories are at least 50% whipped cream in fact: Pavlova - that simple but delicious Australian dessert of meringue covered in whipped cream and fruit; and that chocolate wafer icebox cake consisting of nothing more than chocolate wafers held together with whipped cream, and allowed to chill until the wafers get all soft like cookies dipped in milk.  Yep, my addiction to real cream started early, and I fear the day I should ever become lactose intolerant like our dear mom now is.

Well, if you happen to share our love of cream, then chances are you also have a weakness for all the wonderful things you can make with it - such as ice cream, crème brulée or one of my favourites,  pastry cream;  that glorious eggy, custardy filling that you find inside the Perfect Chocolate Éclair... (I can hear angels singing - do you hear it too?)

Since I first tried this recipe several years ago, I have learned a few things: 1) Pâte à Choux has about a billion uses - all of them delicious, 2) the average guy working for an oilfield services company can polish off about 6 chocolate éclairs without feeling so much as an ounce of guilt, and 3) almost all of the éclairs I had eaten in my life up to that point, were clearly made with crappy vanilla pudding mix.  That's right, the powdered foods I create food from these days are flour, sugar, cocoa and the like.  (which is why I have proudly joined the ranks of fellow bakers and bloggers on Baked From Scratch - a great little list headed up by Sugadeaux Cupcakes from Australia, who also happens to have the snazziest profile pic I think I have ever seen).  That's also why you see the cool new badge on your left.

So I'm sharing my recipe with you all... I hope that you will give it a try at least once, just to see what you are really missing when you take the easy route and use a powdered mix.  I don't know a person on this planet who's mouth starts watering when they read this sign.

The Perfect Chocolate Éclair (I hear angels again!)


REAL Pastry Cream
300 ml heavy cream
180 ml milk

5 egg yolks

100g sugar 

1/4 tsp salt

30g cornstarch

2 tsp vanilla
60g cold unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces

Pâte à Choux
125 ml milk
125 ml water
125g unsalted butter
4g salt
140g all-purpose flour
4 large eggs (at room temperature)

Chocolate Ganache
(instead of making a super sweet glaze, I just use ganache.  Sure it may be a little bit messier to eat the finished product, but I have never heard anyone complain about it - they're too busy licking their fingers)
280 ml heavy cream
300g dark chocolate, chopped
1 tsp vanilla


Directions:

REAL Pastry Cream

In a large saucepan, heat the cream, milk, salt and 85g of the sugar over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture just begins to simmer and remove from heat

In the bowl of a standing mixer, mix the egg yolks, cornstarch and remaining 15g of sugar, and whisk on medium-high speed until the mixture becomes thick and pale yellow.
With the mixer on low speed pour 1/2 of the cream into the yolk mixture in a slow, steady stream.  Be careful not to add the cream too quickly or you'll end up with scrambled eggs - not exactly the desired effect.  Once the eggs are tempered, pour the mixture back into the saucepan, and place over medium low heat.  Gently but continuously whisk the mixture until it thickens and begins to bubble.  If using an instant-read thermometer, the temperature should read between 175˚ and 180˚F.  Remove the pan from heat and whisk the butter into the custard, one piece at a time.  Finally, whisk in the vanilla and sieve the mixture through a mesh strainer into a medium bowl.  Cover the pastry cream by pressing a sheet of plastic wrap against the surface to create an airtight seal.  Place in the refrigerator to cool.

Chocolate Ganache
Heat the cream in a medium bowl in the microwave for about 1 minute, but take care not to allow it to boil.  Add the chopped chocolate and allow it to sit for about 5 minutes.  Slowly and gently stir the chocolate and cream until the mixture becomes thick and glossy.  Stir in the vanilla and set aside to col to room temperature.

Pâte à Choux
Preheat the oven to 425˚ and adjust the racks to divide the oven into thirds.  Prepare two baking sheets lined with parchment paper.  Spray a bit of non-stick spray under the parchment to keep it in place.
Place the milk, water and butter into a small saucepan and heat over medium heat.  Once the butter has completely melted, add in the flour and stir vigorously, scraping the bottom of the pan, until the dough is well mixed and resembles the texture of wet sand.  Place the dough into the bowl of a food processor (or stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment).  Turn the food processor on to cool the mixture  for a couple of minutes.  With the processor running, add the eggs, one at a time, through the feed tube.  Scrape down the bowl if necessary, and continue to process until the dough becomes thick and glossy.  Scrape the dough into a pastry bag fitted with a large round tip and pipe into evenly-sized large dots or long lines, spacing about 1 1/2 inches of space apart.  Bake for 12-15 minutes, until the choux are puffed and golden brown.   Remove from oven and, using a sharp knife, skewer or toothpick, quickly pierce each pastry and return them to the oven.  With the oven turned off and the door propped ajar, allow the choux to dry for 30-40 minutes.

Once dry, fill a medium pastry bag, fitted with a small round tip, with the pastry cream.  Gently pierce the choux pastry to create a small hole.   Insert the pastry bag tip into the hole and gently squeeze to fill the choux with pastry cream.  Careful not to over-fill the choux, or it will ooze back out.  Once all the choux have been filled, dip one side of the pastry into the luke-warm ganache and place on a tray or baking sheet.  The éclairs can be chilled for about an hour in the fridge, or served immediately at room temperature.

I would advise on how to store the éclairs, but I've never had the chance to.  All I've ever had to do is wash some chocolate streaks off the serving plate.