strawberries are everywhere in NYC these days - or at least the places i go. namely fruit carts, grocery and wine stores, oh and the occasional clothing boutique. oh what the life. hm. anyways as you know weekends are when i shake all of the baking off my brain. so last weekend i ended up with an extra egg white just sitting in the frig. and it sat there all week. aging and aging as the days went by. so i knew i had to turn that ripe old egg white in to macarons.
it rained all day long on yesterday. it was london over here: no sun, chilly, all drizzle and fog. so being idiotic and stubborn i got my mind set on making them yesterday. i was going to do it damnit! yeah, i think i have warned you about this before but just don't even think about making these when the humidity is anything above 60% definitely not 100% like i chose to do. its a waste of your time. to my defense; it was late and i didn't notice that i had started raining again. non-the-less it didn't happen.
as mention above i may sometimes be a bit stubborn. in other words i now have to produce macarons this weekend in order to correct this wrong i have done. so i woke up, monitored the humidity and went to work.
back to strawberries. they are everywhere so they are on my mind, but i just finished my two boxes for the week and i definitely didn't feel like forking over any more $$$. i remembered that i had some dried shriveled strawberries in the cupboard (i had a thing about them over a year ago). enter the coffee grinder! grind them into a powder and there you go - a way to infuse flavor into this supersensitive batter. then i remembered i have a block of white chocolate that i should try and use. i say try because i hate hate hate white chocolate, but i does go with strawberries and everyone else i know adores it. so we get white chocolate ganache. i have to say i tasted one and it was pretty darned good, white chocolate and all.
STRAWBERRY & WHITE CHOCOLATE GANCHE MACARONS
STRAWBERRY MACARONS
1/2c almond flour
1c powdered sugar
1 tbs strawberry powder
2 egg whites (at room temp)
1/4 tbs sugar
*preheat oven to 375F, line pan w/ parchment
*sift together the almond flour, powdered sugar and strawberry powder
*in a separate bowl beat the egg whites until soft peaks form
*add in sugar and beat until stiff and shiny
*gentle fold in the egg white with the powdered sugar mixture
*pipe into 1 1/2" rounds onto prepared pan and cook for 15 minutes
*let cool before removing from pan
WHITE CHOCOLATE GANACHE
3 1/2 oz white chocolate, finely chopped
1/4c whipping cream
1/2 oz butter, cubed
*heat the cream in a sauce pan until bubbles form
*take off heat and add the chocolate, let sit for a minute then stir to smooth
*add the butter and stir to combine
*let cool to thicken before using
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