Oh my goodness!

It has been officially almost 5 months since I last updated. So so so sorry about that 🙁

The past semester has been busy. And unfortunately, I hardly even had time to bake. If you follow my Instagram, you’d know that I baked a strawberry shortcake & a cheesecake but apart from those two, I haven’t really baked anything, lest update my blog.

I’ve since started my Summer internship (four days after my final exams ended :<) and the office is celebrating World Baking Day, which is today! The theme was cakes but I just miss baking macarons so much that I had to do something macaron related.

Sometimes at night, I think about macarons and what sort of flavours I could curate. There are just infinite possibilities. But I decided to be practical about it and use whatever I already have in my fridge, rather than go around and end up having even more ingredients that will end up expiring on the shelf (it ALWAYS happens). So last year, I bought this Pink Guava Puree and made it into a ganache for my Lemon & Pink Guava Macarons. Mind you, this Puree is like some 2-litre thing. I honestly have no idea how I’m going to finish it before it expires at the end of the year. You can probably expect tons more pink guava desserts from here hahaha.

What I did was take my usual recipe of macaron shells, paired it with my favourite Swiss Meringue Buttercream, but then reduced Pink Guava Puree with Brandy (just for a little fragrance) and then added it in to make Pink Guava Macarons.

I used quite a bit for a small batch of macarons to make the flavour more pronounced, but it still wasn’t too strong, and perhaps not as obvious as I’d like it. But since Guava is a rather subjective flavour, I figured it was best to keep it more subtle than to overwhelm everyone.

Some baby’s breaths from my Anniversary bouquet hehe

Do try it for yourself and let me know what you’re baking this World Baking Day!

Pink Guava Macarons

Macaron shells
Makes 100 shells
Preheat oven to 160 degrees with fan

Ingredients

A:

• 300g powdered sugar / icing sugar
• 300g almond meal/almond flour
• 110g egg whites

B:

• 75g water
• 300g granulated sugar
• 110 egg whites

Directions:

1. Sift powdered sugar & almond meal together. Put egg whites over and leave aside
2. Boil water and sugar until it reaches 115 degrees celcius. Begin whipping the egg whites till they reach soft peaks
3. When the sugar syrup reaches 118 degrees celcius, pour it into the egg whites to create an Italian Meringue
4. Keep whipping until your meringue has stiff peaks (see Meringue tips)
5. Fold the meringue into the almond mixture A
6. The batter should be ribbony and when a pattern is created, the pattern in the batter should disappear only after 15 seconds
7. Pipe out the macaron shells around 3-cm in diameter, spaced out from each other
8. Put into oven for 8-10 minutes or until the shells are ‘fixed’ or ‘attached’ to the baking parchment. This will mean that the parchment will shift about when you hold on to one shell. The shell should not detach from the rest of the shell (if you’ve made macarons before you should know what I mean)
9. Take it out to cool & remove from parchment sheet

Pink Guava Buttercream (SMBC)

Ingredients:

• 100 g sugar
• 2 extra large egg whites
• 150 g butter, at room temperature
• 100g pink guava puree
• 1 bottle cap of brandy

Directions:

1. Take pink guava puree and 1 cap of brandy and place in saucepan, reducing over low heat.
2. The resulting mixture should be thickened but not burnt. Leave to cool.
3. Place sugar and egg whites in a large heatproof bowl. Put the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and whisk continuously until the sugar is dissolved. The mixture should be thick and sticky.
4. Place the egg white mixture into an electric mixing bowl. Using whip attachment, whip the egg white on medium-high speed until it reaches a stiff peak and is glossy. The meringue should be cool at this point.
5. Change to paddle attachment (of electric mixer) and continue beating meringue at medium-high speed . While the motor is running, add small chunks of room temperature butter one at a time. Continue adding all the butter and keep beating until the butter is blended in and the buttercream is smooth, very smooth.
6. Add cooled pink guava puree that has been reduced, to taste.

Assembly:

1. Match up your macaron shells
2. Pipe pink guava buttercream
3. Cap with the matching macaron shell
4. Refrigerate & serve to eat the next day

Hope you enjoy this recipe 🙂

Love,

Eugenia