Lemony-lemon Macarons & Rose Macaron

So over the weekend I continued with my quest for the perfect macarons in my tiny kitchen. As many of you will know, macarons are a fincky little thing.  Even after I have mastered a smooth top after a year of experimenting, I am still striving for the perfect macaron with even colouring, consistent height and of course balanced flavours.

This weekend I chose to make lemon macaron and rose macaron.  These are quaint essential classic macaron flavours.  Whilst the shell of both macaron have similar ingredients and should in theory taste the same, it is the filling that gives each one their distinctive taste.  To enhance the lemon flavour, I added 1 lemon zest and 1 tsp of lemon juice to the Italian-meringue buttercream.  By adding lemon juice to the buttercream, it helps to give the macaron a more authetic sour taste, which I found most people like. The rose buttercream was made by mixing the Italian-meringue buttercream and Rose jam that my dear husband got for me from the Mandrian Oriental.  I think the aroma and taste of the rose jam compliments really well with the buttercream.

The piped macarons

Lemons are in the oven. Look how puffy they are, but once out of the oven they deflate at little bit.

Rose Macarons

Lemon Macarons

Cupcakes and Macarons

 

So I made these classic cupcakes and macrons over the weekend. The cupcakes were vanilla cupcakes topped with Italian-meringue buttercream in various colours. I am still trying to get my buttercream to a consistency in which I can pipe a perfect buttercream swirl. Or maybe I just need to make more cupcakes so I can practice more. I love how nice and colourful the cupcake turned out. Taste wise I really like the texture of the cupcakes, but I think I still need to reduce the sugar by about 10% as I think the average Asian taste tend to be less sugary.

A cupcake gathering

The lily behind was one of my final piece that I made in my last Wilton course 4 class

 

The macarons were from a recipe from Pierre Herme. It was salted butter caramel and green tea topped with red bean buttercream.  I think I will make the salted butter caramel much more darker next time, because I think it is too pale at the moment. I am determined to get the perfect macaron out of my little oven!