Macarons

Macaron
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with Macron or Macaroon.

A macaron is a traditional French pastry from Nancy, a commune of the Meurthe et Moselle département, in northeastern France. Dating back to the 18th century, the macaron is made of egg whites, almond powder, icing sugar and sugar. This sweet pastry came out of the French courts' baker's oven as round meringue-like domes with a flat base.

In the early 1930 the tearoom and pastry-shop Ladurée in Paris started selling the new creation of Pierre Desfontaines, grandson of Louis Ernest Ladurée: two traditional dome halves sandwiched with a sweet filling between: the ganache. This resulted in giving the new macaron a larger size, the possibility of flavored garnishes, and a newfound moistness that came from the garnish. Whereas the traditional macaron was sweet and dry and crunchy, the new macaron had the added attraction of being delicately crunchy on the outside, while moist, chewy, and flavourful on the inside.

Many cookbooks provide macaron recipes, but the authentic Parisian macarons, with the multifarious flavors and colors, have continued to be in short supply, due to the difficulty in making them well. Today, there are but a few cities in which top quality macarons can be found.
These include London (Paul Boulangerie, Yauatcha, Ladurée), Melbourne (Laurent Bakery), Sydney (Lindt Concept Store and Cafe), Paris (Pierre Hermé, Ladurée, L'Atelier Joël Robuchon, Fauchon, Gérard Mulot, Jean-Paul Hévin, La Maison du Chocolat, Carette, Sadaharu Aoki), Madrid (Delipanific, Moulin Chocolat), Tokyo (Dalloyau, L'Atelier Joël Robuchon), Hong Kong (Le Goûter Bernardaud), Manila (Bizu Patisserie), New York (Fauchon, Bouchon Bakery, Payard, La Maison Du Chocolat),Waterloo near Brussels (Ducobu), Baltimore (Patisserie Poupon), and San Francisco (Patisserie Phillipe).

Flavors available can often vary with the seasons and include:
almond.apricot.blackcurrant.caramel.chocolate.cinnamon.coconut.coffee.hazelnutpraline.fig.foie gras.greentea.lemon.licorice.orange.pistachio.pepper.raspberry.rose.truffle.vanilla.violet.walnut

well, i think we all want to learn how to make this pretty lil thing, rite?

So, anyone who's got a good recipe for it, pls share with us k? better still, teach us!!!

afterall, we did tried to make dougnut (foodfad then), so why not macarons (foodfad now)? grins


~aunty dolly

Eat and Cook Thru 2008!

Exciting activities proposed for 2008:

Term 1	CCA Open House –  Jiao  Zi Sampling and Live Demonstration Chinese New Year –  Demonstration Welcome Session cum Reception Valentine’s Day Sale Tea Appreciation Workshop at Tea Chapter Visit to Chocolate Factory Fundraising 1
Term 2	Arts Day - Cake Art Demonstration by Shatec Workshop – The Art of Gracious Living Elections and Handover to new Committee Dragonboat/Dumpling Festival
Term 3	National Day Racial Harmony Day Cooking Demonstration Mooncake Festival Fundraising 2
Term 4	Open House on top of these we'll still be having our weekly cooking sessions. And... not forgetting makan trips! So... PLS FEEDBACKKKK!!! feedback,feedback,feedback,feedback,feedback,feedback,feedback,feedback,feedback,feedback! suggestion,suggestion,suggestion,suggestion! culinaryclub.vjc@gmail.com -aunty dolly-

WE ARE OFFICIALLLL!!!!

MY-OH-MY THIS BLOG IS DEAD!

well to make this blog more interactive i've finally decided to put up a tagboard.:D
hope that you guys will make gd use of the tagboard to give feedbacks and suggestions! :DD

MUAH CHEE

Just in case some of you are still not sick of muah chee and would like to try making them at home, well, here's e recipe:

Ingredients:
1 pkt glutinous rice flour (600g)
1.5 cup of water
1 pkt of pre-packed peanut powder (read: fine) for muah chee
sugar to taste (for peanut)

Firstly, add water to the flour in a large bowl. add slowly and not all at once, and mix well. impt: do not add too much water or the muah chee will turn out to be to nuah (soft). this step is crucial, and precise agar-ation is needed though it comes along naturally with experience.

Secondly, mix and knead the mixture well until dough-y, but not too dough-y. when kneading, yes KNEADING, not massaging the dough, pls use a bit more strength. the longer you knead the dough, the nicer the texture of the muah chee, provided you didnt add too much water in the first step.

Next, pinch a ball of dough that is around the size of a pingpong ball, roll it well, and then give it a good smack using your other palm to flatten it. cook the flattened dough in boiling water with pandan leaves. it is cooked when it floats. repeat the pinch-roll-smack-cook for the rest of the dough.

When the dough pieces are cooked scoop them out and put it in a sturdy mixing bowl that can that the hitting and beating that's about to follow. using a wooden stick (with a rounded end is preferred), hit the lumpy dough pieces with all your might. hit=stabbing action, btw.
after hitting for 5-7 mins depending on how much you enjoy the process, it's time to beat the mixture (which should no longer have obvious pieces of dough sitting around unbeaten, shld look like a lump of dough by now). beat=more violent whisking action. mix the dough well to get a nice and smooth texture. when your arms are achingly sore from the beating, you can stop abusing the muan chee and dress it with some ointment-like sesame oil. mix it well and now it is ready to be cut up all over again.

Oil you hand and the scissors well before cutting or else the muah chee will stick on to it like white leech. cut the muah chee into small bits and dump it straight into that bowl of peanut powder. now, here is the fun part. Toss the muah chee pieces in the powder and play treasure hunt(well if u r young at heart)!

Pick out the muah chee pieces and serve.

muah chee is best eaten straight out from the peanut bath and doesnt taste nice at all when left overnight. if you find that your peanut coated muah chee has turned a little wet after sitting around for too long just add more peanut! YUM!

pardon me if you find the recipe too violent cause some of us are just too sick of eating and making muah chee after the recent case of overconsumption/production.

-auntie dolly :)

random food pics

pork-something pasta

@OLD hk - marina sq foodcourt

the pic looks abit weird.

@OLD hk - marina sq foodcourt

black pepper fish pasta

the fish is good. =)

@OLD hk -marina sq foodcourt

ham & mushroom pasta

@DONNA BISTRO - toapayoh koufu

grilled fish w chunky fries & pasta

the fish is like soft and heavenly... and the fries. extreme potato!!

@DONNA BISTRO - toapayoh koufu

OUT! - suyi

culinary club's first cooking session

hello! due to the miserly VS retracting on our oral agreement, the mighty CC has to strut our stuff in the canteen, so AA right, but we're so humble, its not our fault lor...

anyways, auntie dolly was instructing us on preparing the dough, haha, practice for her future cook show, Dolly Maama Can Cook!

and the gas stove abit crazy, haha. mainly cos our dear alvin forgot to bring the supporting stand thingy, thus the flame has no oxygen... blah..

but CC people are versatile! actually is the drinks stall auntie gave us the idea.. sheesh. details details.. as i was saying, the smart CC members used rocks to support the bbq grill, courtesy of HnF, who have weird stuff in storage...

well, i'm lazy to type more.

we had fun. =) at least i did.

OHH! most importantly! support CC in the upcoming national day celebrations! we'll be selling muah chee! putu mayam(?) and something else!

don't miss this great opportunity to taste our delicious muah chee!

P/S. the dough balls are sooooooo cute!

sean with a weird look. abit like vampire...
feipeng's face of utmost concentration.

"i must get the perfect thickness, concentration, fluffliness, stickiness, consistency ... "

alvin, ms meta & zhichao kneading the ultra super duperly cute dough balls.

they're like ultra soft and squeezy... haha./ not the people...

the flattened dough in the boiling water, with pandan leaves to shoo kazhua! (cockroaches)

the mixing process.

the superbly kawaii dough ball!! ^ ^

only took a few pictures. sry! zhichao! upload the rest! ty.

OUT! - suyi