Tuesday 30 June 2009

Pink ....and orange

When we visited France two years ago the pastry shops and tea rooms were almost as much a treat for the eyes as a treat for the stomach. Laduree with their famous macaroons had my colour tastebuds going into overdrive.

I decided to attempt my own after reading this post on orange flower:sketchbook (a gorgeous blog if you haven't yet found it). She references this excellent article which gives lots of helpful hints on achieving the perfect macaroon.

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Sitting in my pistachio coloured Kitchenaid, the pink macaroon mix looked divine.

One of the tips the article gives is to rest the freshly piped macaroon on the trays before cooking. This forms a nice little crust and helps to give that flat top.

Whilst my macaroons were resting on the bench a certain member of the family helped themselves to the fruit bowl, situated right near the resting macaroons, and whoops a plump orange rolled right through the tray.

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At least it didn't wipe out all of macaroons. There were still plenty to make into these delightful little treasures and I kind of liked the colour combo of pink and orange!
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The finished product. I love the little frilly base of each biscuit and I can assure you, they taste as good as they look!
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Note: The recipe for the biscuit used in this article is almost the same as the recipe found in my Women's Weekly Cookies cookbook but with a lot more detail. The recipe for the fillings is different though and I used the recipe in the article which had more cream instead of chocolate as I think the texture created by the chocolate doesn't entirely complement the macaroon. The result though is a runnier filling which doesn't make the biscuits sit perfectly separated. I used the raspberry jam in the filling also and it gave a lovely flavour.

9 comments:

Lin said...

Oh yes! I want to make these so badly!

A Spoonful Of Sugar said...

Amazing - they look so delicious!

Cathy said...

Yummy! Think I might have to try pistachio coloured ones as well as pink.

Leaves of the family tree said...

Yours look as good as the ones you tagged! yummo

Daniel said...

I want to take that sticker off the orange.

smileykylie said...

oh dear, they look soooo good, I'm going to put the kettle on....

smileykylie said...

ok, after watching master chef tonight I am even more impressed!

Megan said...

Oh, these look *so* gorgeous!!! If they tasted half as good as they look, they'd be heaven.

Corrie said...

perfect! for the twins birthday party I'm doing an afternoon tea and was thinking of doing macaroons! I used to buy 6 for the eurostar back to london when I lived there and figured they are low fat!!!! my favourite flavours are strawberry and pistachio.

thanks for sharing, yours really do look perfect and I'll use my kitchen aid for mine too! fingers crossed mine look as lovely as yours!!

Corrie:)