Hello everyone! With the final weeks of school, everything has been getting really crazy. Deadlines for reports (individual and group), presentation preparations, studying for exams (which I still need to get started on), the list goes on & on.

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This week, I finally got down to a macaron order from a dear friend from IJ. She’d asked me to make these Pandan Coconut macarons for her boyfriend, who adores pandan. This was my first macaron order and I was kinda nervous doing it. Firstly, you can never be sure about whether your macarons will turn out perfect (darn this Singapore heat). Secondly, if I did fail, I’d have to restart. Where was I going to find the time in midst of my crazy schedule? Well, I banked on the fact that the last time my macaron shells failed me was a year ago and went ahead with it.

I used my usual recipe for macaron shells. They’re the Pierre Herme ones, which are pretty much foolproof and gets me the results I want. I will probably try a few other recipes during the holidays, should I have more time, and do a comparison of textures and flavours. The ganache was adapted from Adriano Zumbo’s recipe, and is really pretty awesome.

Since I did this under time constraints, I didn’t manage to get pictures of me making the shells step-by-step. I’ll only post the recipe for the ganache this time round, but will definitely do up a post on my macaron tips once I feel confident enough to share it with everyone (I’m still an amateur and have much room for improvement!).

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Pandan Coconut Ganache
Adapted from: Adriano Zumbo’s fantastical kitchen of other-worldly delight
Fills ~ 14 macarons generously

Ingredients:

  • 50g coconut milk
  • 2 tsp freshly squeezed pandan extract (you could add more for flavour)
  • 87g white chocolate (I only used top grade Amedei chocolate. I once worked with cheaper white chocolate and my ganache never did set!)
  • 35 g unsalted butter, cubed and softened
  • 5g dessicated coconut

Directions:

  1. Put the coconut milk and 1 tsp of pandan extract in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Turn off the heat and set aside
  2. Prepare white chocolate in a bowl
  3. Bring the coconut milk to a boil once more, pour it into white chocolate and stir until the mixture is smooth. Do this slowly but continuously until the ganache is smooth
  4. Add in unsalted butter and mix till smooth by hand. You can use a hand stick mixer if you think you need to
  5. Add in the dessicated coconut
  6. Place clingwrap on top of the ganache, not leaving a gap so that a sugar crust will not form, and place in fridge to cool
  7. Once set, use the ganache!

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Love

Eugenia

P.S. I realize that almost all my posts have involved coconut and pandan. Guess I’m really staying true to my roots and Asian flavours? Do let me know if you would like to see anything on this blog 🙂

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