Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all...thought I'd share my macaron-related Christmas present from my sister with you all. I highly recommend it - it's filled with wonderful recipes not only for macarons but other sweet cakes and pastries too!

And also my wreath of macarons:

Christmas Gifts: Gingerbread boxes with macarons

This year, I wanted to give my team at work a gift to thank them for all their hard work throughout the year.

I enlisted my sister to make some gingerbread boxes (6.5cm x 6.5cm x 6.5cm) and filled them with macarons and packaged them in cellophane with gold wire ties.

What do you think?

Christmas Macarons #3: Chocolate Mint

The second-last of my Christmas Macarons for 2011 (I'm running out of room in my freezer!) are my chocolate & mint macarons.

I used to make these with chocolate ganache flavoured with peppermint oil but have since found that using Lindt Mint Intense works best.

The ganache works well with 1:1 of cream and the chocolate.

For a Christmas touch, I decided to try decorating them with edible gold paint. Not sure if I'm 100% happy with them but they'll taste good regardless!

Christmas Macarons #2: Sticky Date, Ginger and Toffee...

I highly recommend these for Christmas - they're delicious!

Sticky Date Ganache:

For the filling, begin by covering ~100g pitted dates with ~250mL hot water and a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. Put in microwave for 30 seconds, drain water and then squash dates with a spoon until a smooth paste forms. Stir in 1 teaspoon of ground ginger.

Pitted dates

Meanwhile, make a white chocolate ganache by heating 80g of cream and adding 200g of good quality white chocolate (I prefer Lindt's white to Callebaut's white). Add the date paste to the ganache and allow to cool in the fridge while you make the macaron shells.

Sticky date ganache

Toffee Sauce:

To make the toffee sauce, heat 100g of castor sugar in a pan until melted and golden. Carefully add 30g of cream and mix until combined. Set aside to cool.

Macaron Shells:

For the shells, follow the recipe here. Once cooled, carefully brush shells with gold shimmer powder

Adding gold shimmer dust

Pipe shells with sticky date ganache and a touch of toffee sauce.

Macarons can last a few weeks in the freezer if frozen immediately after assembly. To defrost, simply remove from freezer a few hours before serving.

Christmas Macarons #1: Jaffa (chocolate & orange) macarons for Cynthia's friend...

To make these two-toned macarons, make a batch of orange shells and a batch of chocolate (you can try doing both at the same time like I did but I ended up cursing the entire time and put myself in a bad mood!). The biggest problem with making two-toned macarons is getting the size of both colours exactly the same (each batch you make will spread to a different degree when piped).

The generic macaron recipe can be found here.

For the ganache, make your choice of a milk or dark chocolate ganache (equal parts cream and chocolate).  Before you allow it to cool, add some orange oil to flavour it. If you have an orange handy, you can add some finely grated orange rind in too.

New title...new layout

No, you haven't gone to the wrong blog - this is the former "Macarons by Erica" with a new name and layout but everything else will remain the same!

Check back next week for this year's Christmas Macarons - Salted Caramel with Festive Spice...