For the Love of Beets

I have been on a bit of a beetroot jag over the last few weeks. I’m not sure why, but their ruby coloured flesh and beautiful red and green stalks have captured my heart. They have an earthy and honest taste that is unique. I must confess that I am a beetroot lover from way back. While pregnant (both times) I craved beetroot and would simply eat it by itself or on a sandwich. I couldn’t get enough. I also have a profound belief that a burger is not a real burger without beetroot on it…there is just something about having beetroot juice running down your hands and arms while trying to eat a good burger that completes the experience. I also must confess that I like tinned beetroot as well as raw beetroot, I have no prejudice toward this vegetable. There has only been one time where I was put off by beetroot and that happened to be back in the seventies when I tasted home-made pickled beetroot – maybe it was the cook?

So anyway, as I said, I have had a bit of an obsession with this vegetable and I wanted to experiment. I had heard that there was a cake made with beetroot and chocolate – this seemed like an urban legend – so I set out to try and discover it. I was extremely surprised at the amount of beetroot cakes out there. So, after reading a few recipes (and their reviews) I attempted my own. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. My first taste of this Chocolate and Beetroot cake was an “OMG” moment. The mousse-like texture and rich velvety chocolate were divine. I was enraptured! Even my husband and two boys where amazed and couldn’t get enough of it. It was the type of cake that you can’t stop thinking about even the next day.

So here is the recipe!

Chocolate and Beetroot Cake 

Ingredients 

50gms Brown Sugar

1 tbls Butter

200gm Fresh Beetroot, peeled and finely grated

400gm Dark Chocolate (70% Cocoa Solids)

6 Eggs, separated

100gm Caster Sugar

100ml Pure Cream (not thickened cream)

75gm Almond Meal

Ganache

100gms Dark Chocolate (70% Cocoa Solids)

75mls Thickened Cream

1 tbls Butter

Raspberries to Serve

Method

Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius- (a slow oven is best for this cake so if yours is fan-forced, reduce the heat). Grease a bundt pan (or other ring shaped cake tin)

Heat a frypan and melt butter. Add brown sugar and grated beetroot. Stir over medium heat for 10-15 minutes or until beetroot is cooked and has a soft, caramelised texture. Set aside.

Break chocolate into small pieces and put into a heat-proof bowl. Sit the bowl over a saucapan of simmering water and melt chocolate until smooth and glossy. Set aside.

Using an electric mixer, whisk egg yolks and half of the caster sugar for about 3 minutes until thick, pale and creamy (this could take longer depending on your mixmaster). Gently fold in the choclate mixture and then the caramelised beetroot.

Whisk egg whites in an electric mixer until soft peaks form, continue whisking while adding the remaining caster sugar. Continue to whisk until the sugar has dissolved and the egg whites are smooth and glossy.

Beat cream to soft peaks and then fold through chocolate mixture with egg whites.

Add almond meal and gently combine.

Pour into prepared tin and place tin in a roasting pan. Fill roasting pan with enough boiling water to come halfway up the side of the cake tin.

Bake for 45 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 150 degrees celcius and bake for another 30 minutes (or until cake springs back when pressed). Turn off oven and let cake cool in oven for another 20 minutes. Take out of oven and allow to cool completely before turning out.

Ganache

Melt chocolate and cream in a heat-proof bowl over a pan of simmering water until smooth and glossy. Remove from heat and stir in butter.

To serve, fill the centre with raspberries and pour ganache over cake.

Please Note:

This cake cooks very slowly – don’t try to rush it. The first time I made this cake I had an emergency phone call and had to rush out while the cake was still in the oven (it had been in the oven for about 43 minutes) so I turned the oven off and left it in there. I was gone for about 4 hours and when I returned, the cake was perfectly cooked.

Fig & Frangipane Tarts

Ahh…autumn.  My favourite time of year.  The skies are so blue and clear, the weather is crisp and fresh and there is an abundance of beautiful produce.

I was browsing through the fruit and veg the other day when I came across some beautiful figs.  Now, I don’t normally eat figs, but they looked so gorgeous and plump, I couldn’t resist them.

Upon arriving home, I was unsure as to what to do with these succulent looking globes.  But with my recent obsession with pastry, a fig tart seemed like the perfect solution.

So here is my Fig & Frangipane Tart recipe…even my food finicky husband and teenage boys (who have never eaten figs before) loved them.

Fig & Frangipane Tarts

Ingredients

½ quantity of Flaky Pastry

250gm fresh Figs (approximately 6)

75gm Almond Meal

75gm Butter

75gm Caster Sugar

1 tsp Cinnamon

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 Egg

1 tbls caster sugar extra

Method:

Preheat oven to 180⁰c.  Grease four 10cm flan tins.

Prepare Flaky Pastry.  Divide into four pieces and roll out.  Fit to flan tins and rest in fridge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Place almond meal, cinnamon, butter and caster sugar in a food processor and pulse until crumbly.

Add egg and vanilla and process until creamy.  Spoon almond mix into flan cases.

Slice each fig into six wedges.  Place eight wedges into each flan case with the skin side down and points towards the centre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sprinkle each flan with the extra caster sugar.

Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.

Taming the Pastry part 2

Hey pastry, it’s not you, it’s me…

So, maybe I don’t suck at making  pastry any more.  Maybe it wasn’t the recipe after all, but my technique?

After deciding that I would conquer my pastry ineptitude, I have discovered that I quite enjoy making pastry and can actually achieve some quite good results.  And I learned a lot along the way.

Pastry, at it’s heart, is flour, butter and water – so simple, but so easy to get wrong.  Shortcrust pastry has a ratio of 2 parts flour to 1 part butter and puff pastry has a ratio of 1 part flour to 1 part butter and both use just enough water to bind them together.  You would think that a recipe with so little ingredients would be so simple to make, but the real trick with pastry is the technique.  It is all about the science.

Understanding the science behind making pastry definitely helps get the results.  Knowledge is power.

Q. Why use cold butter and ice water?

Q.  Why rest the pastry?

The answers to these questions and more can be found here…Caution – Science Content

So, with a little bit of knowledge behind me, I was able to look at pastry making in a whole different light.  I had always looked at pastry as the least significant part of the recipe – just an edible container to hold the hero of the dish, but I have now come to appreciate that good pastry enhances a dish; adds to it; takes it to a new level.

With my new appreciation of pastry, I was able to embrace that part of a recipe instead of resenting it, and that then lead to much better pastry and a much better dish.

For my next little foray into pastry, I decided to concentrate on Flaky Pastry aka Rough Puff Pastry.  Here is the  result…

Poached Pears En Croute

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ingredients
6 Bosc Pears
Poaching Liquid
6 cups Water
115gms Caster Sugar
2 Cinnamon Quills
1 tsp Vanilla Bean Paste
1 tbls Lemon Zest (grated or finely sliced)
2 tbls Lemon Juice
Almond Filling
50gms Almond Meal
50gms Caster Sugar
50gms Butter, softened
1 tsp Lemon Zest finely grated
1 egg
Pastry
175gms Plain Flour
Pinch Salt
¼ tsp Cinnamon
175gm Butter Frozen
115ml Ice Water approximately

Method:

Poaching the Pears

Place water, sugar, cinnamon quills, vanilla bean paste, lemon zest and lemon juice in a saucepan over low heat.  Stir occasionally until sugar is dissolved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, peel and core pears, leaving the stem intact.  Trim ends so that pears can stand upright unassisted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gently bring poaching liquid to a slow boil.  Add pears and cover with a cartouche (a piece of baking paper cut to fit the top of the saucepan).  Reduce heat and simmer gently for 20 minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remove pears from liquid and cool in fridge.  Reserve the liquid.

Making the Pastry

Sift the flour, salt and cinnamon together twice. 

Coarsely grate the frozen butter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Add the butter and flour to a food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Run the processor and slowly add the water until the mixture just comes together.  Test the consistency by squeezing a small amount together with your fingers.  It should stick together, but not be too sticky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turn mixture out onto a floured surface and gently knead until mixture comes together.  Shape into a rough rectangle and wrap in plastic then refrigerate for 30 minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Take pastry out of fridge and unwrap on a floured surface.  Roll mixture one way until it forms a long rectangle and is approximately half a millimetre thick.  Fold up the bottom third and then fold down the top third.

 

 

 

 

 

Turn the pastry 90⁰ and repeat the rolling and folding.  Continue to roll and fold until you have completed it four times.  On the final time, fold the top and bottom into the middle and then fold over like a book.  Re-wrap in plastic and refrigerate for another 30 minutes.

 

 

 

 

Take the pastry out of the fridge and repeat the rolling and folding another two times – that is six times in total.  Return the pastry to fridge for a further 30 minutes.
Making the Almond Filling

Combine the almond meal, caster sugar and butter in a bowl until creamy.  Add the egg and lemon zest and mix until smooth.

Assembling the Pears

Preheat oven to 220⁰ Celsius.
Remove the pears from the refrigerator.
Fill the cavity (from the removal of the core) with the almond meal mixture and set aside.
Take the pastry from the fridge and divide into six pieces.
Roll out one piece of pastry to form a square.  Sit one pear in the middle of the pastry square and pull up two opposite corners until they meet at the stalk.  Press together to seal.  Repeat with remaining pastry corners.  Place on a tray.  Repeat with remaining pears and pastry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brush pastry with a lightly beaten egg.  Bake for 30 minutes or until golden.

Making the Syrup

Place two cups of the reserved poaching liquid in a saucepan and bring to the boil.  Simmer until syrup thickens.

Serve

Serve pears with syrup and Raspberry Crème Patissiere

 

Raspberry Creme Patissiere

Ingredients

3 Egg Yolks

½ cup Caster Sugar

3 tbls Corn Flour

2 tsp Plain Flour

300ml Milk

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

½ Pure Cream, lightly whipped

½ cup Raspberries, macerated

Method:

Whip egg yolks and sugar until pale and creamy.  Add both flours and mix until smooth.

Add 1/3 milk to the egg yolk mixture and mix until combined.  Place the remaining milk and vanilla extract in a saucepan and heat over a medium heat until steaming gentle.

Remove the milk from the heat and slowly pour in the egg mixture, whisking all the time.  Return to the heat and continue to whisk until custard thickens.  Remove from heat and allow to cool 5 minutes.

Whisk in whipped cream and then gently stir in raspberries.

Flaky Pastry

Ingredients

250gm Plain Flour

250gm Butter, frozen

Pinch Salt

125ml Ice Water approximately

Method:

Sift the flour and salt together twice. 

Coarsely grate the frozen butter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Add the butter and flour to a food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Run the processor and slowly add the water until the mixture just comes together.  Test the consistency by squeezing a small amount together with your fingers.  It should stick together, but not be too sticky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turn mixture out onto a floured surface and gently knead until mixture comes together.  Shape into a rough rectangle and wrap in plastic then refrigerate for 30 minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Take pastry out of fridge and unwrap on a floured surface.  Roll mixture one way until it forms a long rectangle and is approximately half a millimetre thick.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fold up the bottom third and then

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fold down the top third.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turn the pastry 90⁰ and

 

 

 

 

 

 

repeat the rolling and folding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continue to roll and fold until you have completed it four times.

On the final time, fold the top and bottom into the middle and then fold over like a book.  Re-wrap in plastic and refrigerate for another 30 minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Take the pastry out of the fridge and repeat the rolling and folding another two times – that is six times in total.  Return the pastry to fridge for a further 30 minutes.

The pastry is now ready to use.

Poached Pears

So I just had a quick go at making rough puff pastry, I was really impressed! It didn’t taken as long as I thought and was nowhere near has complicated as I thought. Oh, and it tasted AMAZING! The best pastry I’ve ever tasted. I had a few mishaps, and will make it again to iron out the little issues, but in the meantime here is the finished product

Beef & Red Wine Pot Pie

Ingredients

2kg Gravy Beef diced

250gm Bacon diced

1 Red Onion quartered

250gm Mushrooms

½ cup Balsamic Vinegar

1 teaspoon minced Garlic

1 cup Red Wine

500ml Beef Stock

¼ cup Tomato Paste

2 sheets ready-made Puff Pastry

Method:

1. Heat a large frypan (I used an electric frypan) and spray with oil. Add onion and garlic and fry 2 mins.
2. Add bacon and fry a further 2 mins then add mushrooms (I left mine whole) and continue to fry for a further 2 mins.
3. Add half of the Balsamic Vinegar and cook until ingredients begin to caramelise.  Remove bacon, onion and mushrooms from pan and put in a bowl.  Pour remaining balsamic over ingredients in bowl and set aside.
4. Allow fry pan to reheat and spray with oil.  Add beef and brown, if using a smaller fry pan, cook beef in batches so that it doesn’t stew, take out each batch and add it to your mushroom and bacon mix.
5. Return beef, bacon and mushroom mix to frypan.  Add red wine, beef stock and tomato paste.  Cook on low to medium heat for 45mins to 1 hour or until sauce has reduced and meat is tender.
6. Preheat oven to 220 degrees.  Grease eight 1 cup ramekins.
7. Cut rounds from pastry to fit the top of ramekins
8. Spoon beef mixture into ramekins and top with pastry rounds, tucking edges in around the ramekin. Cut two small air holes in top of pastry.
9. Spray top of pastry with oil and bake in hot oven for 25-30 mins or until pastry is puffed and golden.

Glazed Strawberry Tarts

Adapted from The Margaret Fulton Cookbook published 1971

Flan Pastry

60gm cold Butter diced

1 cup Plain Flour

1/2 cup Sugar

1/4 tsp Salt

1 tsp Ice Water

1 Egg White

1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

Filling

250gm Cream Cheese

250gm Mascarpone Cheese

1 cup Sugar

1 tsp grated Lemon Rind

1 tbs Lemon Juice

1 tbls Thickened Cream

2 punnets Strawberries

Glaze

1/2 cup Strawberry Jelly Crystals (1 packet)

1 tbls water

2 tbls Lemon Juice

Making the Pastry

Sift flour and salt together and put into a food processor bowl with sugar.  Add diced butter and pulse in short bursts until mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Combine egg white, water and vanilla essence and add to flour mixture.  Pulse until dough just comes together.

Turn out onto a floured surface and knead lightly.  Roll pastry into a ball and wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 30 mins.

Lightly spray four 10cm flan tins.

Divide dough into four.  Roll out one portion on a lightly floured board and ease into one flan tin, being careful not to tear pastry.  Repeat for the other dough portions and flan tins.  Lightly prick the bottom of the tart case with a fork.  Return to the fridge and chill for a further 30 mins.

Preheat oven to 190°c.  Bake flan cases for 10-15 minutes.  Allow to cool completely.

Making the Filling

Combine the cream cheese, mascarpone, sugar, lemon rind, lemon juice and cream.  Lightly whip until well combined and sugar has dissolved.  Chill until required.

Wash and hull the strawberries and set aside to dry.

Making the Glaze

Combine the jelly crystals, water and lemon juice in a saucepan.  Place over low heat and stir until mixture is smooth and glossy.

Assembling the Tart

Spoon chilled cream cheese mixture into cold tart cases.  Arrange the strawberries on top of the cream mixture.  Spoon glaze over strawberries.  Chill before serving.

Notes

If you don’t have a food processor, you can rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips.

Taming the Pastry

“Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth. Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.” ~ Noela Evans

I don’t know why, but I suck at making pastry.  You would think that being able to make a decent pastry would be a must for any aspiring cook.  Unfortunately, it has always eluded me.  I just don’t know what I do wrong…I’ve tried making it by hand and I’ve tried making it in a food processor, but neither gives me the results I’m after.

Just recently I was trying to make a shortcrust pastry for some mini quiches; what a disaster!  The whole lot ended up in the bin and I resorted to using frozen, ready-made pastry, but it got me thinking, why can’t I learn this basic staple of cooking?  So I have decided to set myself a challenge – learn how to make pastry.

Now, before everyone goes emailing me with their tips, I have been researching the art of Pastry making.  I know that the pastry needs to be kept cold and you need to have cold butter and cold water.  I know that you shouldn’t overwork or over-handle the pastry.  I know that your work area needs to be cool and that it is even a good idea to put a tray of ice on your work bench for a few minutes to cool it down before rolling out your pastry.  Still, my pastry fails.

Remarkably, though it may seem, I can make choux pastry…the techniques are obviously quite different, but I thought it would be interesting to note that I am not a complete pastry failure.

What makes a pastry good or bad?  Ultimately it comes down to the texture of it when cooked.  A good pastry should melt in your mouth, it should have a good crumb (for shortcrust) or be light and flaky (for flaky and puff pastry).  It should not be dry, tough or chewy (this is how my pastry could generally be described).

So anyway, back to my challenge.  I am going to challenge myself to make three types of pastry.   Sweet Shortcrust, Savoury Shortcrust and Flaky Pastries and post my results – the good, the bad and the ugly.

Okay, I’ve got all my stuff together…food processor (I am not going to attempt it by hand the first time), butter (nice and chilled), flour (bought today to make sure it was fresh), sugar (for the sweet shortcrust), eggs, and ice water.

I decided to make a vintage Glazed Strawberry Tart from “The Margaret Fulton Cookbook”.  This cookbook was first published in 1968, the edition I have was printed in 1971 and I picked it up from a garage sale for $3.00.  The poor thing is falling apart (well, it is older than me) but it has some absolute treasures in it.

For the savoury pastry I’ve decided to make a Beef & Red Wine Pie.  I’ve made these before, but as Pot Pies with just a disc of pastry on top, but this time I wanted to make an real pie.

The actual pastry making goes well, and I begin to think that I may actually have made two decent pastries, and then I take it out of the fridge to roll.  The sweet pastry is not too bad to handle, just a few tears when I put it into the tart cases.  The savoury pastry is another story.  It is hard to roll out and the edges crack.  It is hard to fit to the pie cases and tears easily.  It made me start to sweat because I was working so hard.  Finally it is in and the cases go back into the fridge for another half an hour.

Now this is where it all starts to go wrong.  My beautiful sweet tart shells burn in the oven…I forgot to decrease the cooking time (because they were smaller than in the recipe). They look a bit like Brandy Snaps…but I will plough on.  I need to know what they taste like before I make any judgements.

Luckily the savoury ones cook nicely.  I fill the cases with their respective filling and voila!  Here are the finished products!

The Beef & Red Wine Pies are nice.  The pastry has a nice crumb and is delicate in the mouth.  My only complaint is that I should have allowed more gravy/sauce in my beef mix as the pastry is a tad on the dry side.

The Glazed Strawberry Tarts are delicious!  I was worried that the pastry was burnt, but it has turned out like a biscuit crumb base with a nice crunch.  That makes me wonder if it wasn’t a true shortcrust pastry after all…which means I will need to redo the sweet shortcrust pastry to fulfil my challenge, what a shame.

Overall, my attempts at mastering pastry have gone well…I surprised myself I am definitely going to try another sweet shortcrust pastry and I still have to make a flaky pastry, so until then…
Michelle xxx
P.S. If you want to research pastry, try these websites:
Gourmet Traveller
How to Handle Pastry
Why Does My Pastry Shrink

The Macaron Bowl

So, this is my first blog.  I wanted to start off with a bang, so what better way than to attempt the deceptively technical Macaron.

Firstly, there is a difference between Coconut Macaroons and Macarons.

These delightful little morsels of sugar and almond have challenged even some of the best cooks.  Who doesn’t remember Andriano Zumbo’s devilish Macaron Tower challenge on Masterchef?  They are almost the “unicorn” or “Eleanor” of the cooking world, but to look at them you would never guess.  They look so innocent with their smooth round shells and cute little feet, but don’t be deceived; these little devils are quite technical and require your full attention when making them.

But in saying all that, don’t be scared off giving them a go.  You know what they say; you have to face your fears!  So I decided that I would take up the challenge.

Let me set the scene.  It is one of my best friend’s birthday (Gaye).  I need to make a “cake” to feed up to twenty people.  It needs to be spectacular.  Of course I immediately thought of a Macaron Tower.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the foundation structure required to make the tower, so I came up with the Macaroon Bowl…and Gaye gets to keep the bowl as a present.

So here’s the finished product:

These are not perfect, but I was pretty happy with the results…they looked pretty and tasted good too!  I would have liked them to be a bit taller and a bit more even in shape, but I was pretty impressed with the results I got first go.

I read lots of recipes and blogs before I made my Macarons…I wanted to make sure (or try to convince myself) that I knew what I was doing.  In all my reading I found two basic techniques - Italian meringue or French meringue – I decided to use the Italian Meringue.

Now, I am in no way an expert…I have only ever made Macarons once before (and that was using the French Meringue technique), so if you are inspired to make these, I recommend doing some research and can suggest two great blogs :

Not So Humble Pie

The Cake Mistress

So this is just my experience and I can’t guarantee your experience will be the same as mine, but I encourage you to give it a go.

Here are my top tips when making Macarons:

1. Measure, measure, measure!  Macarons are so pedantic that they require exact measurements.

2. Sift your almond meal and icing sugar…pulse in a food processor first if you can and then sift.

3. Let them rest…the drying time before cooking is essential if you want your Macarons to have their dainty little feet.

4. Age your egg whites – separate the whites and leave on the bench overnight – you will get a better meringue.

This is the recipe I used:

Vanilla Bean Macarons

(I also used this recipe to make Strawberry Macarons and just added colour and flavour)

Ingredients:

200gms Ground Almonds

200gm Icing Sugar

75ml Water

200gm Caster Sugar

160gm Egg Whites – I used 4 Jumbo sized eggs

1/2 Vanilla Bean

Pink Gel Colouring (for pink ones)

1 tbls Strawberry Powder Flavouring (for pink ones)

Method:

Combine almonds and icing sugar (and strawberry flavouring) in a food processor and pulse until well combined.  Sift mixture into a large bowl.

Dissolve caster sugar in water in a saucepan over low heat.  When dissolved, bring to the boil and allow to simmer, without stirring, until the temperature reaches 115 degrees Celsius.

While sugar is simmering, gently beat 80gm egg whites until soft peaks form.  When the sugar mixture reaches 105 degrees Celsius, increase speed of mixer.

When sugar mixture reaches 115 degrees, remove from heat and pour the syrup into the egg white mixture in a thin stream while beating.  Continue to beat egg white mixture for a further 10 minutes.

In the meantime, combine the remaining egg whites with the almond mixture to make a smooth almond paste.  Add the seeds scraped from the vanilla bean. (Add pink colouring if required)

Combine some of the meringue into the almond paste to loosen it and then add the remaining beaten egg whites, working the mixture until it is smooth, consistent in colour and makes thick ribbons in the batter.

Spoon into a piping bag and pipe rounds onto a prepared baking sheet.  Tap the sheet to release any air bubbles and place on a level surface to rest for 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 150 degrees Celsius and bake Macarons for 14 minutes. Remove from oven and remove the baking paper and Macarons from hot tray onto a damp tea-towel immediately.  Allow to cool.

Filling:

Strawberry & White Chocolate Ganache

400gm White Chocolate Melts

200ml Pouring Cream

30gm Butter

1 tbls Strawberry Powder Flavouring

Pink Gel Food Colouring

Method:

Place the White Chocolate melts in a bowl.

Put the cream in  a saucepan and bring to the boil.

Pour hot cream over chocolate and stir until chocolate melts.  Add flavouring and colouring and mix until well combined.

Allow to cool until temperature reaches 40 degrees Celsius, then stir in the chopped butter until melted.

Continue to cool in fridge, stirring frequently, until a thick consistency.

Mascarpone Chantilly Cream

250gm Mascarpone

60gm Icing Sugar

1/2 Vanilla Bean

250ml Pouring Cream

Method:

Combine the mascarpone, vanilla seeds and icing sugar until smooth.

Whip the pouring cream, half way through gradually add the mascarpone mixture and continue beating until your have a thick creamy consistency.

Assembly

Pipe filling onto bottom of one shell and join with second shell.  Refrigerate in an air tight container for one hour before serving.

So, hopefully, I have inspired you to try Macarons, or maybe, try them again.

Michelle xoxo