The Mad Hatters Macarons

It was many months ago that I spoke to Dawn and she said she'd really love for me to do the cake for Dale and her wedding ... but they didn't want cake, in keeping with the Mad Hatters Tea Party theme they wanted an array of biscuits and cookies.

So time passed, I had fleeting thoughts about what to do but kept coming back to the conclusion that macarons would be perfect for the occasion.

We were really busy in the build-up, and it wasn't until a few weeks before the wedding that I got to think about the finer details, and then the week before that we managed to do a few trial runs.

Oh yeah, and I'd never made macarons before!  My first two attempts were complete failures ... not in the end result but in the fact Esme always needed attention and the macarons ended up being made by Tash!  Although we were taking steps, we knew our piping nozzle was too small and the end results weren't quite as I was after.

And so it came to the week of the wedding.  After discussions with Dawn we'd planned some choc chip shortbread and then a range of macarons.  The plan was to design a range of macarons that tasted complely different to how they looked.  And so as the wedding week kicked off we were facing making 200 macarons consisting of choc orange (dark choc shell and green ganache), rose (blue shell with white ganache), spiced (green shell and dark choc ganache) and finally a 'peanut butter and jelly' (white shell with pink decoration and peanut butter and jam filling).

With making 200 I quickly learnt how things should look and what I was searching for ... and I knew I wasn't happy.  Everything on the net made them seem like some mystical baking challenge that can take years to perfect, and I even bought a wee book to help me!

I tried many things but I always felt my mixture was too thick and I ended up with too many 'nipples' on my shells.  Plus the difficulty of learning what setting the oven needed to be at and precisely how long to bake for to ensure the perfect shell.  There were just too many variable at this point!

Come Thursday night I did a load of reading on the net.  I still wasn't happy and I felt my sugar content was too low and mixture too wet.  I looked at loads of recipes and found a gem of information.  It was recommended to use egg whites that were 24 hours old, or give them a quick blast in the microwave to slightly reduce the moisture in the egg whites.  And so with a new technique and a new recipe I was confident all my problems would be solved.  I was up at sparrows fart to hit the supermarket - and 40 eggs and endless amounts of ground almonds later I was ready to get going.

I'm pleased to say it worked an absolute treat and Tash and I spent the whole of Friday (the day before the wedding!) pretty much making all new macarons.  There were some from previous days which were OK, but in general I was making them over again.  With each batch they got better and better and I think the final peanut butter and jelly ones looked fantastic!

One thing I've learnt is that everyone has a different recipe and a different oven.  You need to find a recipe that works for you and a setting/timing that works for your oven.

So here's how I do 'em;

3 egg whites
50g caster sugar
200g icing sugar
110g ground almonds

Step 1 - Stick your icing sugar and ground almonds into an electric mini grinder and give them a quick whazz.
Step 2 - get your egg whites in a suitable dish and nuke for 10sec at 50%
Step 3 - Get your electric whisk in action and go crazy on your egg whites until you call hold the bowl above your head and you don't end up wearing it.  Or stiff peaks, stiff peaks is fine.
Step 4 - Add the caster sugar a third at a time until you have a really sweet glossy mixture.
Step 5 - this is where you add and any flavourings or colourings to your mixture
Step 6 - with a 10mm nozzle pipe your macarons onto a baking sheet loaded with some baking pacrchment.  Shells want to be about 40mm in diameter
Step 7 - leave to form a slight 'crust'.  Likely to be 30-60 mins.  Basically you should be able to lightly touch the top and have no mixture picked up by your digit.
Step 8 - Get em into the oven - 11 minutes in your 150 degree preheated baking machine.
Step 9 - Take em out, let them cool a little, remove from baking sheet.

Now all you need to do is work out your filling!

If The Mad Hatter Threw A Wedding

A few weeks back (May 12) Dawn and Dale brought about an occasion which very rarely happens - my good self wearing a suit!  They had chosen a gorgeous summer spring day at Marygreen Manor in Brentwood to finally tie the knot and open up their relationships to all the benefits(?) the current government choose to bestow upon married people.  Everything from the invites to the dinner table had a Alice in Wonderland theme to it and it made for a unique, beautiful and relaxed day.

The buildup had been frantic.  And that was just for us at FTC.  I was honored to have been asked to provide the 'cake' in the form of choc chip shortbread biscuits and various flavoured macarons.  There will be a blog about this in the very near future, but lets just say come the start of the week I was still yet to learn how to bake a macaron!  I figured that if the Mad Hatter did macarons then nothing would taste as they would look and so that is the path I went down.  I just wish I'd had Heston's mobile number!

We did a day trip down to Brentwood and were very pleased to see that upon our arrival most of the biscuits had arrived in a condition very close to that they left Arlesey.  All that was left for us to do was unpack, change (cos you can't trust Alfie or I to travel in 'smart' clothes!), sink a G&T, and get ready for proceedings to begin.

Dawn looked stunning, Dale was terribly dapper, and with Alfie and young Imogen (Dale's niece) leading them I can't think of anything more perfect to get people in the gushy wedding spirit.

They had a lovely service, albeit slightly interrupted by a young boy who was unsure if he wanted to share his limelight ... he had a captive audience after all!

With fingers now wearing new bands it was time for photos.  Tash set up an amazing spread for the 'tea party' whilst the snappers were at it and I think it looked better than either of us ever imagined it would do!

We were in a lovely little room which had a real intimate and welcoming feel to it.  Before each course it was time for a speech with Dale, Dad and Simon (Dale's best man) all taking their turn.  My Dad's speech was really good, and I'm sure Dawn was very relieved.  There was loads he could have brought up but somehow slipped through the net ... Bec & Pen anyone!?!?  It was sometime during the speeches (or more than likely the pass the parcel interlude!) that Alfie acquired a whistle ... that whistles a quack.  Need I say anymore?  He still has it in the Benz and creases with laughter each time he hears 'quaaaaaaaaaack' resonate off my windscreen.  These stoppages between courses gave people the opportunity to enjoy a bit of croquet, sadly minus flamingos, and generally chat and drink in the sunshine outside - a sure sign of a wedding going well!

After food came drinks and biscuits aka the Mad Hatters Tea Party that Tash has so wonderfully laid out.  Thankfully I am led to believe went down well although oddly enough I didn't really fancy one!

And finally the day was rounded off with a lovely reception all kicked off with a first dance.  I was dead impressed with their choice of song, I know it off the film Juno which I suspect is where Dawn first heard it.  My dearest wife excelled herself here and managed to get it all captured on the Powershot!

It wasn't long before the events of the day had caught up with Alfie and we chose to hit the road.  It was a beautiful day and here's some of my other shots.  All 100+ of my photos can be seen here.