Experiment on Some Sweets

 

Macaron with lime buttercream.

初マカロン！

Here are some pictures of the sweet treats I made last week.

I have never made French macaron before, so I made it for the first time.

I also made another French-style sweets called "Tart Conversation" for the first time.

I used some kumquat in them.   I love kumquat!  Too bad that they are pretty expensive here in the U.S.  About 89 cents for 5 little kumquats!  I used to buy some at the farmers in our neighborhood in Mitaka, Tokyo.

バレンタイン・デーに作ったケーキと初めて試しに作ってみたお菓子2品。

作ったことないものを作るのって楽しい。

マカロンはいろんな失敗をやらかしてしまいました。また再挑戦ですね。

 

Chocolate layered cake for St. Valentine's Day.

I just fixed this from what we have in the fridge

so that I could use up some remains of heavy cream and mascarpone cheese.

 

4 layered chocolate Genoise cake with:

chocolate ganache with orange zest and Meyer's rum,

hazelnut spread mixed with mascarpone cheese,

and apricot jam for a little bit of tart flavor.

 

Here is the mistake #1:

I didn't use any parchment.

Nor did I grease the oven pan!  Duh!

 

They looked fine from the outside.

 

Here is the mistake #2:

Huge air pocket on the top of the macarons.

I didn't bang the oven pan hard enough 

on the table before setting it to dry the surface.

 

So, only 60 % turned out to be usable for sandwich.

We ate all the broken ones anyway, though!

I am not gonna waste anything!

 

I put some buttercream 

using pâte à bombe (egg yolk whipped with boiling syrup)

added a little bit of lime zest and juice. 

 

Here are the puff pastry called "Tart Conversation".

It turned out to be great and tasty!

 

I used some quicker way to make the puff pastry,

but it still took me a couple of hours

because I had to roll and fold the dough 3 times 

and needed to rest the dough in the fridge for 15 minutes between each process.

 

On the top of the puff pastry, 

I put some royal icing (egg white/icing sugar mix) before baking it,

which gives you nice and crusty texture on the top of the tart. 

 

Here is the inside of "Tart Conversation".

The composition is (from the top layer):

royal icing,

puff pastry,

almond cream with Meyer's rum,

raspberry jam and Canadian whisky flavored kumquat,

and puff pastry at the bottom.

金柑が売ってたので早速、使ってみました。

高いのでちょっとだけだけど、格段においしくしてくれます。