Thick Lemon Curd Filling

I have a pet peeve. I hate biting into a macaron and the filling oozes out, and gets all over the place. Macarons are supposed to be fancy and delicate, not like a Carl’s Jr. Burger. 

Before I made the lemon curd for the superhero lemon macarons, I scoured the Internet for weeks to find the perfect thick lemon curd filling. I made three batches of lemon curd before finding the right one.

The first recipe I made tasted great, perfect amount of lemon but it was too thin. Here is my peeve in pictures. See how it oozes out of the cookies?  Blah!

Picture taken using my blackberry phone.  

These were still eaten! I took them to work for my co-workers to enjoy. They’re not too picky and I don’t let my cookies go to waste!

The second recipe was fine. I added a tablespoon of corn starch to it to thicken it up, so the consistency was perfect, but I wanted to make another batch because I didn't like the dry aftertaste it left in my mouth. I thought the dry aftertaste/starchy taste came from the corn starch.

I redid the second recipe without the cornstarch and the consistency was super thin and it still had a dry aftertaste. What?   Why?  The dry aftertaste/starchy taste actually came from the tartness of the lemon.  I’m glad I saved that second batch!  The curd stayed in place and didn't ooze!

The sweetness from the cookie and the combination of the curd was perfect.  No dry aftertaste.  Here is the recipe I used.  I found it on a blog comment during my search for thick lemon curd filling/lemon macarons but now I cannot find the link to it.  If this is your recipe, let me know so I can credit you.

Thick Lemon Curd
2 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
½ Cup of Sugar
½ Cup of Lemon Juice (I used Sunkist lemons, I’ll try Meyer Lemons next time)
As much zest as I can pull off the lemons that made of ½ cup of juice
5 T of cold butter
1 T of cornstarch* (I added this and it does make the curd thicker)

Putting together the lemon curd is similar to making a Swiss Meringue butter cream. Because I love video tutorials, here is a great one on how to make lemon curd from the Joy of Baking.

Superhero Party!

If you have seen my boards on pinterest you'll know that I'm obsessed with ombre cakes, ruffle cakes and Jacob's superhero party.  When my nephew Jacob was born I could not wait to plan his dessert table, within the first month I thought it would be great to have a superhero party for him.

There are some great superhero parties out there!  I was truly inspired.  I worked on some macarons a week before the party, and I wish I started earlier.  I had problems with getting the coloring just right.  I made macarons and colored them blue, red, and yellow.

I started with the blue first.

I used navy blue gel coloring for this batch.  I was pretty happy with the color because it was the superhero blue I was looking for, not too bright, not too dark.

Here is a close up compared to the blue paper I had.  Once it was baked, it turned into something different.

See the difference?  I bought sky blue powder coloring the next day with the intention of redoing the cookies, but didn't have time.

My next macaron was the red macaron.  I was nervous about this batch because I have been struggling with getting red macarons super red.  I used what was left of my fired engine red powder coloring and some super red gel coloring and prayed it would work.

My prayers were answered.  Mixing the food powder coloring into the powdered sugar and almond flour mixture and the gel coloring into the meringue mixture worked perfectly!  This was the super red that I have been trying to achieve.  I always worry about putting too much food coloring (especially gel) into a batch, because when I put too much food coloring it always effects the cookie in a negative way.

The last batch of macarons I had to make was yellow.  

I added about a teaspoon of yellow gel coloring to the mixture because I wanted the yellow to be really bright.  I cooked the first batch and once they came out the oven the yellow cookies looked more mustard.  For the second batch I took the cookies out a little bit earlier and they were undercooked and hollow and I had to redo them.  I used less coloring the second time around and they came out fine. 

The cookies do brighten a bit when you put them in the freezer.  Here is the end result, which I am very happy with! 

I filled the yellow macarons with lemon curd (I made three batches before getting it right.)  For the blue macarons I made a swiss meringue buttercream and mixed in blueberry jam.  For the red macarons I used a swiss meringue buttercream and mixed in raspberry jam.

Here's a close up of the macarons.  The blueberry was really subtle, I'd like to try and make it again with blueberry pie filling.


I also made Oreo cake pops.  

Oreo pops are always a hit.

And so are superhero dessert tables.  This table was really nice and simple.  I also made the smash cake in the back.  I need to work on my frosting!  Jacob's aunt Anita made the cupcakes.  Orange creamsicle, salted caramel, and nutella cupcakes.  My sister ordered the birthday cake from a local bakery and they did an excellent job!  The cake was also delicious and moist.  At the end of the party all the kids suffered from a sugar crash.  And when I say kids, I mean my friends and I.

Macaron and cake pop factory

No, I don't actually have a macaron or cake pop factory, I wish I did because it would sure come in handy!  Here are some things that I have worked on this month.

Chocolate red and yellow cake pops with white sprinkles for my brother's baby shower.  My nephew Ethan was born on May 4th!

Red Macarons filled with raspberry filling.  This was also for the baby shower.  This is the red that I have been trying to achieve.  I used a LOT of red powder food coloring to get it to this color.  I notice that if you let the macarons sit in the freezer for a day, it enhances the color.
 

My favorite color is purple!  I made purple macarons filled with chocolate ganache and the popular salted caramel macaron for a quincenera.  The color theme of the quincenera was purple.  I hope everyone enjoyed these!

 These macarons look big, but but they're about one inch rounds, which is a perfect bite sized treat!

Eek!

It's been such a long time since my last update!  I have a few events planned this summer that I'm excited about!  It will involve a lot of cake pops and macarons, for sure!

Macaron Day

Did you know March 20 is Macaron Day? I didn’t either until I read about it on MACTWEETS. I’ve been following MACTWEETS blog for a while now. Jamie and Deeba have monthly challenges highlighting macarons. This month's challenge is, MacAttack #27 Macaron Day Macarons.

In honor of Macaron Day, and my first entry in the MACTWEET challenge, I’m showing you my version of the Salted Caramel Macaron.

I’ve been to a few different macaron bakeries and I always check to see if they have salted caramel macarons. They are my favorite because I love the combination of salty and sweet and I want to find a perfect one to try and recreate. 

A friend had macarons all the way from the Ladurée in Paris sent to her and she was kind of enough to share. My favorite salted caramel macaron comes from this bakery, and salted caramel macarons from lette coming in a very close second.

Making my own salted caramel intimidates the hell out of me, and I didn’t have a candy thermometer yet so for my first attempt, I went the Sandra Lee route and did a semi-homemade salted caramel filling.



Have you tried the Salted Caramel Sauce from Trader Joe’s? If you have not, you must. It’s delicious. During the holidays I finished a whole jar in a few days, by myself. Don’t judge me.



For the macaron cookie I followed the recipe from Jill’s Mad about Macarons cookbook adding a bit of brown gel coloring to the mix.

The TJ’s salted caramel sauce is a bit runny for the macaron. I don’t enjoy eating a macaron and having the filling spilling out. I tried to thicken it using cornstarch and cream, a technique I found here, but I may have done it incorrectly because the consistency was not where I wanted it to be. 

I decided to mix the TJ salted caramel sauce with Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

Once the buttercream is nicely whipped, I slowly added the salted caramel sauce. I didn’t measure how much I added, I just kept adding more and beat it in my mixer until I got the flavor and consistency I liked. Make sure the caramel is at room temperature. 




The cookies came out great and they were part of the dessert table for my boyfriend's birthday.

Don't forget to have a macaron for Macaron Day!

Cheers for Beer!

My friend Sha and I helped our boyfriends celebrate their 30th birthday this past weekend. We planned a casual beer tasting party with lots of beer, tacos, snacks and sweets. I got the idea for the Beer Tasting Party from seeing it here on Hostess with the Mostess Blog.



We wanted to keep it manly and going with the beer theme went with the colors brown, tan and touches of red.



I took over the dessert table and created desserts based on the theme colors and the boy’s favorite sweets.  



Salted Caramel Macarons - I made a Swiss meringue butter cream and added Trader Joe's Salted Caramel Sauce to make this. The salted caramel flavor was really light. I'm going to add more salted caramel the next time I make this.



Red Velvet Cake Balls. I flew to Las Vegas and had these cake balls already in the mini cupcake liners. They got screwed up during the travel. Next time I travel with cake balls, I would wait until I prep the table to put the cake balls on the mini cupcake liners.



I love these. 



I used Martha Stewart's Cream Cheese Brownies Recipe found here. Delicious.



This cake was bought at a local bakery in Las Vegas. It was sooooo good!



My friend Gee made an awesome banana pudding. I'm sad we didn't get a picture of it on the dessert table. 


I told my boyfriend we should have a faux photo booth area in his backyard, where people could take pictures with their camera phones. He thought it was a bit much, but Sha loved the idea, and being control freaks we are, went ahead with it. :P 

Pinning!

I know I’m not the only one, but I am addicted to pinterest.  I love finding inspiration through others and checking out awesome baked goods.  The only problem is I now have a difficult time not wanting to bake and EAT everything I pin, and I can't stop pinning.  Here are two things I have made so far, I’m sure it’ll be two of many to come.

Slutty Brownies

Source

I eat with my eyes and I wanted to make this based on looks alone, and it looks so decadent and delicious.  Cookie dough?  Check.  Oreos?  Check.  Brownies?  Check!  Glass of milk… oh no, that’s what I was missing!  I’m not a regular milk drinker, but you definitely need to have a glass of milk on hand when you’re about to eat this! 

I followed the recipe exactly, except I used unsweetened cocoa powder instead of regular cocoa powder the recipe called for.  I’m not sure if it matters and I’m still trying to figure out if there is a difference, but I’m going to assume the unsweetened cocoa powder used in the brownies helped cut the sweetness.  As decadent and sweet as it looked, it was not tooth aching sweet.  It was perfect.  It would be delicious warm with some vanilla ice cream on top.  

Here is my version.  I got eager and didn’t wait for it to cool all the way.  If you let it cool all the way you can get a nice pretty cut like the picture above.   I plan to make more and just store in the freezer and warm up when I’m in need of a sweet fix.  Which is like, everyday.

Smores Cookies

Source

I love smores!  I can’t get enough of it.  I love the mini Hershey bar on top of the cookie.  Again, I’m eating with my eyes.   I have tried other versions of smore cookies, and my advice, don’t skimp on the graham crackers when making these.  I used Target brand graham crackers and the taste was just of the graham cracker was, eh.  I blame the brand.   Don’t get me wrong, it is a REALLY GOOD cookie, but I think it would have tasted better if I used a different graham cracker.  I like Honey Maid Graham crackers. 

Here is my version I like my cookies soft and I thought the graham cracker cookie would soften from baking (like the Oreos from the slutty brownie) but they remained crunchy.  This is great if you love a crunchy cookie.

I wanted a thicker cookie so I did not flatten the dough that much.  Using my Goldtouch baking pans I made 24 cookies on one sheet and made about 18 cookies with the remaining batter.  That’s a lot of cookies!  

Baking these cookies and brownies was a nice break from my regular weekend of cake popping and making macarons.  My next goal is to tackle cakes, wish me luck!

Find me here on pinterest!