So last week, I made an experimental macarons that turned out perfect. Well, almost perfect. They were hollow, but at least they looked much, much better than the ones I've made previously.
This week, I decided to start playing with variations. This time, I blanched the almonds because I wanted to dye them pink--I was planning on sending them to my sister...if they turn out perfect.
I sprinkled pearl dragees on a few of them, for an even cuter look.
I put them in the oven, and prayed to God again (I wonder if Catholic pastry chefs pray to St. Honore...?).
Lo and behold....
Wow. They turned out nicely! The shell wasn't as smooth as the ones I did last week, but they were still very pretty, with subtle pink color and those pearl dragees.
Unfortunately, they were hollow. Hmmm....I still need to keep practicing...
I painted one of them with red food color to see how they hold up if I doodle on them. Doing that is not a problem at all...but as Mom said, "They don't look as elegant."
Well, so as pretty as they turned out, they still weren't the perfect macarons that I wanted. So I used them as decorations for the cake I made for the (almost) weekly Bible study.
As for the cake...it was supposed to be a Strawberry Mousse-Pistachio Cake, with a decent amount of strawberry mousse. When I put the genoise (layered with pistachio buttercream) on the bottom of a square pan, I noticed that it wasn't quite big enough; there was a little less than a centimeter of space in between the cake and the pan. But silly me, in my haste, I poured the mousse over it anyway, chilled it, and finished it off with a blackberry gelee. When I cut into it, I realized that the mousse had ran down the sides of the cake, leaving little mousse on top of the cake. I was devastated, close to tears and told my mom to just toss the cake, because it wasn't perfect. She refused vehemently, saying to just serve it as is, since it still tasted wonderful and no one would complain. I relented, and decided to just change the name from "mousse cake" to Strawberry-Pistachio Torte.
The next day, I cut the torte, garnished it with berries, vanilla buttercream, a macaron, and chopped pistachios. Served with blackberry sauce and creme anglaise (...which was actually just melted vanilla ice cream. FYI, if you're in a pinch for some dessert cream sauce, just melt some ice cream).
Two different presentations. The top one, a smaller portion, was for the kids, the bottom one for the adults. What did everyone think? They thought it was heavenly. Sophie literally licked her plate clean, and both she and Hugh, and two adults, had seconds.
So yes, although the cake didn't turn out the way I wanted, I have to admit it was delicious.
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