They call me Mac – a –Looney

“I’m running out of time, I really need to make some macarons tonight!” - I clump around the kitchen pulling out mixing bowls and beaters.  Mr. Kitchen Hand just looks at me quizzically. “Didn’t you just make some a few days ago?” No, that batch was a couple of weeks ago. “What about the time before that” he asks. That was in October, for the Daring Bakers! Giving up in confusion, he shuffles off to bed, and I hear him mutter under his breath, “Goodnight, you macalooney”.

At least I know that there are others out there who share my brand of lunacy. There’s even a clubhouse with secret password and everything. (The Mactweets clubhouse is here, and the password? Just tweet Deeba or Jamie that you want to join in. They’re lovely and won’t make you go through any initiation rites).

I’m not sure if I’m posting on time, but having jumped the gun earlier, this time I wanted to wait until the very last minute. Hope it still counts!

With the holidays just round the corner, I went for a Christmas pudding flavoured macaron, filled with rum butter (no brandy in our house).  Please accept my apologies for taking this elegant tidbit and giving it such a garish colour scheme. It was definitely accidental - didn’t realise how much colour was sticking to the inside of the piping bag until it was too late! (Always wanted to try this brush striping colour technique).

The actual mac making experience was quite interesting, to say the least. Best explained in picture form:

No guts, no glory mac-making. Decided to add two dried figs into the macaron shell mixture (recipe below). Also added breadcrumbs and chirstmassy spices like nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. To try and break down the figs, I whizzed them  in the food processor, with the breadcrumbs and almond meal. Took forever and the almond meal was in danger of turning into almond butter. So I tipped the mixture out and tried to grind it in the mortar and pestle. Then seive and repeat ad nauseaum! Finally got so bored of it, tipped the final bits back into food processor with the icing sugar. End result? Stopping to poke bits of dried fig out of piping tip every two minutes!

The brush striping technique as mentioned. I don't always use disposable piping bags but I don't have a large enough piping tip and these ones were just right. To ease my conscience, I wash and reuse the bags - so far I've gone 5 rounds on the same bag with no ill effects (but this changed as you will see) :)

 The blogeritis has hit hard. I know I'm in trouble when the piping bag bursts and I reach for the camera instead of the cleaning cloth! The bag burst because I was so fed up of fishing out fig bits I kind of squeezed a bit harder than usual.

All's well in the end. The first lot baked perfectly, and I believe tht drying time (very long) really helped.I had the brown top/sticky bottom dilemma on all the subsequent batches though. At first I though it was drying time, but wondering if my hands are too hot and the macaron mixture was affected inside the piping bag?

Apart from the garish colours, they taste really good!

Christmas Pudding Macaron Shells:

Dried breadcrumbs 30g
Almond meal 50g
Icing sugar 135 g
Caster sugar 20g
Egg whites 60g
Pinch of cinnamon, clove and nutmeg
2 dried figs (I used mission figs).

For method, visit the Mactweets site for a tutorial.