Macarons with Red Currant Curd

Actually, I went to the kitchen to cook something for lunch, but I felt so empty and had no idea, so I decided to bake macarons instead. Well, I still have no idea, what to cook, but I have a nice bunch of macarons. Somehow I always postponed making Italian merinuge based macarons, and what a mistake this was! I have never managed to bake white macarons before, but today finally it just happened! It seems, that I made one step towards imporving my macaron baking skill. I am so happy with these batch of macarons, and now I feel like I could bake macarons all day long. I already have some egg whites ageing and I can not wait to bake another bunch! I have never been a big fan of macarons, but these made me love them.  When I had two sheets baked, I decided to add some cocoa powder to the batter and even those worked out! I was thrilled! So far I always had problems with cocoa powder in the batter, but not this time. For the filling I took an old and almost forgotten recipe of mine that is actually a raspberry curd, but now I've prepared it with red currants.

Ingredients:
(recipe by Tartelette)

80 g aged egg whites

25 g sugar

100 g almond flour

100 g icing sugar

100 g sugar

35 g water

for the filling:

200 g red currant puree
120 g icing sugar

2 egg yolks

150 g butter

Beat 40 g of egg whites with 25 g of sugar until it forms peaks. Meanwhile make the syrup: bring 100 g sugar with 35 g water to boil and as soon as it has reached  110°C remove it from the heat and add it to the beaten egg whites in a thin stream while beating constantly. Keep on beating until it has cooled down, this takes about 10 minutes. Stir the other 40 g of egg whites, unbeaten to the sieved almond-icing sugar mixture. Preheat the oven to 150°C. Pipe macarons onto a silicon sheet or a baking paper covered baking sheet. Bake macarons for 13-15 minutes depending on the oven or a few minutes longer if you make bigger ones. For the filling whisk together red currant puree with icing sugar and the egg yolks and beat it over steam until it thickens. Remove and whisk in room temperature butter. Chill curd for 2-3 hours.

Green Walnut Parfait with Engadine Nut Tart and Whipped Plum Jelly

Lately there is so much to do, that I can hardly catch up with everything. Not that I do not have enough time to spend in the kitchen, but there is also much too little time for blogging. Besides in this hot weather I hardly cook anything, as we live on eating chilled fruits, like cherries and other berries. On the other side, I have a couple of baking orders and usually, when I am done with one the next one is already on its way.


Do not get me wrong, I am not complaining, I love to be busy with baking, it is so much fun and it is so great to hear the feedback from the clients. Last time I baked that famous Swiss nut tart, and as I had some leftover pastry and filling I baked one for us also. Though it is not quite a summer dessert, therefore I decided to prepare something that makes the whole dessert a little bit lighter. Tough, I am not sure if a parfait can be called light. Anyway, some time ago I prepared green walnut syrup and I used this for the parfait. Simply, half the green nuts and pour enough honey over it and let it stand for a day. I've found this great idea in a very special Hungarian blog.


Surprisingly, my favourite farmer has already some ripe pruns right from their garden. Of course I had to buy some. I think walnuts and prunes are great together and because I felt like experimenting I decided to try the whipped jelly. I cooked a simply syrup with the skin of the prunes and then added some gelatine and then whisked it until it turned to be foamy. The whipped plum jelly brought a beautiful brightness onto the plate together with an exciting consistency.

Aubergine cream

It is not a secret that I absolutely have no talent for baking bread, unless it is a sweet bread, that is fine. And I even manage to bake a ciabatta or a fougasse, but that's it. The rest may be used as a weight or as a weapon, but they are not edible for sure. So all the disapointments stopped me even from baking that popular no-knead bread. If you think about it, baking the no-knead bread is not more complicated than preparing a ready made soup, however still it is something different. Last week, finally I felt like trying at least that.


Thanks to the success since then I have already baked it a few more times and soon I might feel confident enough to give a new chance for baking a more challenging bread. Anyway, I could not imagine anything better to be served with a fresh and crispy slice of bread then a lukewarm aubergine cream. At least in summer.


Probably, there are thousands of aubergine cream recipes out there, and everyone has a favourite. Mine will always remain this simple version, the way my mom and her grandmother used to prepare. It is only authentic if it has that smoky taste that you achieve when grilling it over open fire or a gas stove, even I have no gas stove, but I bake them on the stove. It just never tastes the same if it is baked in the oven. No way. As far as the other ingreidents are concerned, well you need only a red onion, salt, pepper and vegetable oil. That's it, nothing else.


So once the aubergines are baked on the stove, I remove the skin as long as it is still hot. Then with the help of a wooden spoon I remove the flesh and chop it. My mom told me, that if one uses steel it get bitter. True or not, I stick to that. Already before combining I add some salt to the chopped onion, then stir it together with the flesh and enough oil so that it gets brighter in the colour while stirring. If there should be some leftover the next day, which usually doesn't happen, then I add a little bit of mayonnaise to the cream. So that's my simple aubergine cream.

Macarons with Tonka Bean Cream

Well, honestly, I am not so much a macaron fan, I do enjoy one or two once in a while, but the rest of my family is absolutly addicted and they do appriciate very much when I bake a bunch. Luckily, meanwhile I've learnt to bake them so I can surprise them once in a while, as I enjoy baking macarons very much, besides it is a great way to use leftover egg whites, if not one of the best ways. By the way, once I had to bake a bunch as a surprise, but it just did not work out. I had no other opportunity then to use fresh egg whites and oh wonder it worked out. I was extremly happy! These macarons were baked somewhen last week and I decided to fill them with tonka bean cream.


Ingredients:
for the macaron:
125 g finely ground almond
210 g powder sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
100 g egg whites
30 g sugar
for the cream:
(adapted fromTartelette)
100 g sugar
2 egg whites
170 g butter, room temperature
tonka bean


Preheat the oven to160°C. Sieve powder sugar, cocoa powder and almond flour, then stir until it is combined. Beat egg white with the sugar then fold it into the almond flour mixture. Fill batter into a piping bag and pipe macarons onto a baking paper covered baking sheet. Let it stand for 30 minutes to dry, then bake for about 15 minutes. For the cream beat egg whites with sugar over steam until shiny, then remove, stir in butter and ground tonka bean.

Pasta with Morel Sauce

Actually, not only morels, but also black trumpet and yellow oyster mushrooms are in this pasta sauce. I felt lucky to find fresh yellow oyster mushrooms, but then it was such a disappointment! Almost a neutral taste, so it is needless to say, that I prefer the common oyster mushroom a whole lot more. By the way, I have fried these seperatly, and did not cooked it in the sauce, as I wanted to try them on their own, just with salt, pepper and some parsley, but they did not convince me. Anyway, though this dish is so simple, yet it is a great comfort food, especially when it is served with a lot of fresh parmesan on top!



Ingredients:
30 g dried morels
20 g dried black trumpet
handful of fresh oyster mushroom
1 shallot
2 tablespoons butter
30 ml whiskey
300 ml brown veal stock
70 ml cream
fresh parsley and thyme salt, pepper


Soak dried mushrooms in hot water and let it stand. Sautee chopped shallot in butter, add mushrooms and pour whisky over it and let it absorb. Now add brown veal stock and about 100-150 ml mushroom water and cook until it is reduced by half. Stir in cream and cook for a few more minutes, season with salt, pepper, fresh parsley and thyme.

Tonka Bean Flavoured White Chocolate Parfait

Lately, we've been talking with my friend Vera about tonka beans, and how thrilled we were when we recieved our package of tonka beans among other spices, and we realised that we completly forgot about it and hardly ever used a pinch since then. The next day, I decided to prepare something with tonka beans. I wanted a dessert that is prepared quickly and needs no oven. I've had a few orders for birthday cakes and therefore I had a bunch of white chocolate bars still on stock, as I have bought far too many, just to be on the safe side. I must say, that I do not like white chocolate at all, unless the triangle shaped Swiss, that I adore, even more than then milk or dark chocolate version. Anyway, then I had the idea of a parfait flavoured with tonka beans, and I have to confess that I ate almost the whole portion myself!



Ingredients:
60 g sugar
5 egg yolks
120 g white chocolae
300 ml heavy cream
tonka bean


Cook a syrup with the sugar and 50 ml water, then slowly add it to the egg yolks while whisking constantly. Keep on whisking until its pale and creamy. Season with tonka bean. Melt chocolate over steam and stir it into the egg yolk mixture. Finally, fold in the beaten cream and freezer for 3-4 hours.

Dried Tomato - Lavender Sablé with Tomato Curd

Well, I always end up buying far too many tomatoes and I think it is absolutely needles to try to change my tomato buying habits, because it is just impossible for me to resist those beauties. Especially then, when my greengrocer happens to have new types every week. It is so totally amazing! Meanwhile, I live on tomato salad almost for a week, sometimes with fresh goat's cheese, sometimes just with a slice of freshly baked bread. However, I always end up with some leftover that needs to be used fast, therefore I felt like experimenting a bit. And so the tomato curd was born. Do not let yourself bother by the orange colour, it is because I've mainly used yellow, green and rosa tomatoes. It would also be funny to make it using only yellow, or only green tomatoes. And by the way, lavender harmonises with tomatoes very well! Give it try!


Ingredients:
for the sablé:
125 g butter
50 g honey
200 g flour
ground lavender (adjust amount to your taste)
2 teapoons ground dried tomato
1 tablespoons vanilla sugar
1 pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Beat butter and honey until foamy, stir in tomato powder, lavender, salt, flour and then knead it together. Chill for 30 minutes, then slice and bake for 6-7 minutes.



for the tomato curd:
100 ml fresh tomato juice
1/2 vanilla pod
piece of star anise
3 egg yolks
70 g sugar
100 g butter

Cook tomato juice with vanilla and star anise until boiling, then let it stand for 10 minutes and sieve. Beat over steam the tomato juice with the sugar, egg yolks and when it is nice thick and creamy remove it from the heat and stir in the soft butter. Cool for a few hours.