What does Neenuh love most in the World of Treats? Macarons, obvi. Speculoos, clearly.
What happens when you put them together? Mouth bliss. Duh.
The speculoos macs were my worst, technically. I forgot to add the pinch of salt when I was beating my egg whites, and I didn't quite beat them long enough to become stiff. Then I made the fatal error of reading a gazillion macaron blogs and decided to use someone else's "fail proof" method rather than my own and baked them at 300F for 18 minutes rather than my regular 325 for 10.
Rule No. 1 of macarons: Once you finds what works with your oven, STICK WITH IT.
My shells, which I'd flavored with a teaspoon of vanilla extract and sprinkled speculoos cookie dust over, were cracked and hollow. The slightest breeze would make them crumble. Shame. But, failure as they were execution-wise, several (including the Dude) have deemed them the best, taste-wise. And wow, did they smell good. Ever gone into an ice cream shop where they make their own waffle cones? Yeah. Like that.
I spread them with speculoos paste and felt the world slip away as I took my first bite. These fall under the Must Make Repeatedly category. You can get your own speculoos paste and cookies under the label Biscoff here in America. The paste can usually be found near your peanut butters, jams and other spreads.
Next up was cinnamon-fig. I put a teaspoon of ground cinnamon in my almond meal-confectioners' sugar mixture in Step 1 and used my brand new pastry bag to pipe them out. These were probably my best, technically. At least the first round was. Since I only have the one Silpat, I must wait up to an hour and a half between piping my first and second rounds (you have to wait for the cookies to set, then bake, then cool). My second batches almost always have the problem of sticky middles, whether I refrigerate the batter between rounds or leave it out. If I had another Silpat I could pipe them out simultaneously and there would only be a 10 minute lag between oven time.
What happens when you put them together? Mouth bliss. Duh.
The speculoos macs were my worst, technically. I forgot to add the pinch of salt when I was beating my egg whites, and I didn't quite beat them long enough to become stiff. Then I made the fatal error of reading a gazillion macaron blogs and decided to use someone else's "fail proof" method rather than my own and baked them at 300F for 18 minutes rather than my regular 325 for 10.
Rule No. 1 of macarons: Once you finds what works with your oven, STICK WITH IT.
My shells, which I'd flavored with a teaspoon of vanilla extract and sprinkled speculoos cookie dust over, were cracked and hollow. The slightest breeze would make them crumble. Shame. But, failure as they were execution-wise, several (including the Dude) have deemed them the best, taste-wise. And wow, did they smell good. Ever gone into an ice cream shop where they make their own waffle cones? Yeah. Like that.
I spread them with speculoos paste and felt the world slip away as I took my first bite. These fall under the Must Make Repeatedly category. You can get your own speculoos paste and cookies under the label Biscoff here in America. The paste can usually be found near your peanut butters, jams and other spreads.
Next up was cinnamon-fig. I put a teaspoon of ground cinnamon in my almond meal-confectioners' sugar mixture in Step 1 and used my brand new pastry bag to pipe them out. These were probably my best, technically. At least the first round was. Since I only have the one Silpat, I must wait up to an hour and a half between piping my first and second rounds (you have to wait for the cookies to set, then bake, then cool). My second batches almost always have the problem of sticky middles, whether I refrigerate the batter between rounds or leave it out. If I had another Silpat I could pipe them out simultaneously and there would only be a 10 minute lag between oven time.
Must. Have. Speculoos. Macarons.
ReplyDelete(And the totally awesome tea-cup set!)
i've been looking for Biscoff EVERYWHERE and can't find it. And by everywhere I mean one or two cub foods. and bed bath and beyond. IT IS NO WHERE.
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