Thank You Stephanie..
(At the risk of getting panned again, I still have to say, I’m currently really enjoying the Scissor Sisters’ version of Comfortably Numb, over the original Pink Floyd version. So there.)
Now, onto some macarons..
A friend recently went cherry picking in Young, and arranged to drop by yesterday with a kilo bag of sour cherries, and joy of joys, some jam she had made. Time permitting, I hope to transform the fresh cherries into a juicy cherry pie. I’ve never made cherry pie before, can you believe? (And have always wanted to, ever since that song by Warrant, which really had nothing to do with pie, did it..). First thing I need to do is get a cherry pitter though. We pit a lot of cherries at work and I can attest to the fact that it’s one of the messiest jobs ever. Not sure how such a simple job as removing stones from a small piece of fruit can transform your work bench into Cherry Wars 2008.
Since I knew she would be visiting, I spent part of the morning baking some macarons as a gift in return. I was experimenting with flavours, and came up with strawberry with white chocolate and sheeps milk yogurt, salted vanilla caramel, chocolate truffle, and “carrot cake”. The more successful ones went into a box for her.
This morning I woke up to The National and Everything But the Girl, and feeling somewhat in the mood (Christmas shopping be damned), thought of a macaron dessert, using the leftover shells and fillings. So here is : macaron with salted vanilla caramel, chocolate and black sesame. The black sesame component is an Adria recipe for a sponge that cooks in 20 seconds in the microwave, and is the airiest and tastiest bit of sponge cake ever. B calls it “that mould”. To be fair, it looks like a cross between roof insulation, a loofah bath sponge and the aforementioned mould.
The overall dish was inspired by this picture of B that Mike took during their last visit to Tokyo:
I love how dark and mysterious it is. Captured like characters in a Wong Kar Wai movie.
My macaron dish probably doesn’t look as mysterious, but if anyone wanted to know the story behind it, I’d have to say, well, it all started with this girl who dropped by with a bagful of cherries..
Tags: black sesame, caramel, chocolate, macaron, plated dessert
Lorraine E said,
December 18, 2008 @ 1:28 pm
Aww can we get the Adria recipe for the black sesame component. That looks so mysteriously dark!!
Y said,
December 18, 2008 @ 1:43 pm
Hi Lorraine! The recipe is here :
http://www.madridfusion.net/grandesplatos_detalle.php?id=0000000227
snookydoolde said,
December 18, 2008 @ 4:13 pm
wow these macaroons look great. I really want to try macaroons sometime. Yours look beautiful. The photos are great too. What a strange flavour for macaroons with black sesame. I like it :)))
Tony said,
December 18, 2008 @ 4:43 pm
absolutely love the artistic presentation – a work of art 🙂 I’d say they’re mysterious because I’m sitting here trying to imagine how good these would taste, but can’t get more than what’s on my screen 😛
My Sweet & Saucy said,
December 18, 2008 @ 5:16 pm
Might just be the perfect dessert! Love it!
Tartelette said,
December 18, 2008 @ 6:03 pm
Your presentation are always top notch! Mysterious cake for a mysterious guy!
Christie @ fig&cherry said,
December 18, 2008 @ 10:22 pm
Woah, that first shot made me dizzy!
Where the hell are my share of the cherries? I thought we were friends.
Y said,
December 18, 2008 @ 11:14 pm
Thanks everyone, for the comments!
Tony : Heh, thanks. Believe you me, they tasted pretty good! I’m a big fan of salted caramel and black sesame, though I’ve never combined them before until now.
Christie : (Friends? Nothing comes between me and a kilo of cherries!) But seriously, you crack me up! You can come pick up some cherries if you want, because I don’t think I’ll have time to drop them off at your place anytime soon ;P
the projectivist said,
December 19, 2008 @ 12:31 am
oh i love that picture that Mike took!
don’t you think it looks like a still from a film?
tara said,
December 19, 2008 @ 5:43 am
Love the presentation – it is architectural and dramatic (especially love the hit of black), not to mention tempting! Beautifully composed.
cakebrain said,
December 19, 2008 @ 6:57 am
Gorgeous macarons! great presentation!
Helen said,
December 19, 2008 @ 9:49 am
A beautiful story, a beautiful photograph and a beautiful plate of food! macarons are among my favouritest of the sweet things, all melty and chewy at the same time.
linda said,
December 19, 2008 @ 12:01 pm
wow your macarons always looks perfect. I have to muster up the courage to give it a go. Btw gorgeous photos.
1minutefilmreview said,
December 19, 2008 @ 4:25 pm
Wow! Really nice!
Christy said,
December 19, 2008 @ 7:58 pm
OOOOOHHHHHH…..the softest and tastiest sponge cake that looks like, erm…well…a dirty sponge. I think the real challenge will be to stop once you start eating them!!
A beautiful composition, and an excellent reference to Wong Kar Wai’s movies. One thing though, his movies always carry an underlying feeling of sadness and loss, which I cannot see when I look at this dessert. A good thing!!
Btw how did the walnut macarons go?
grace said,
December 19, 2008 @ 11:47 pm
your plate of macarons looks like someone (like, say, me) tore into a perfectly-ordered display. love it. 🙂
Anita said,
December 20, 2008 @ 12:20 pm
Beautiful! I love the photos and the story. Wish I could try some.
Shari said,
December 20, 2008 @ 2:11 pm
You’re such an artist! Love your inspiration photo and how you got to your recipe from there. Amazing. and inspiring. All variations of macarons sound delicious.
ELRA said,
December 21, 2008 @ 2:34 am
I really like how you always style your dish/dessert. They always look gorgeous, it’s inspire me a lot.
That picture of B that Mike took, does capture the mistery behind it, especially if you really observe the picture, there is a lady, or gentlemen with long hair pass by…
Have a wonderful holiday.
Elra
hanne said,
December 21, 2008 @ 6:43 am
Speaking of pitting cherries, my mother uses a straw, of all things! It works great.
Also, I really love the idea of a visual inspiration for food.
Eva said,
December 21, 2008 @ 6:35 pm
I always like your seemingly effortless presentation! Need to try smearing stuff on plates as well…
cathy x. said,
December 22, 2008 @ 9:40 am
which meringue method do you use to make your seemingly-perfect-every-time-macarons? i revisted andy’s petit four recipe to make a little batch of apple, lemon & thyme and choc & evo. the apple butter was barely sweet so they went together well but chocolate + macaron was overpoweringly so 🙁 do you have a basic recipe that’s less likely to cause diabetic attacks or do you just adjust the amount of sugar in your recipe to suit the filling?
smelly klissmass for sursday! 😛
the caked crusader said,
December 22, 2008 @ 8:53 pm
Another stunner! There really are no ends to your talents!
matt wright said,
December 23, 2008 @ 9:07 am
Pink Floyd were always too serious for my tastes – the scissor sisters version adds some fun to a great song.. I back ya – SS are great.
Lovely looking Mac’s.
Y said,
December 23, 2008 @ 9:46 am
Grace : B said a similar thing. To him, it looked like a truck had driven across the plate and dropped a whole bunch of garbage in it’s wake!
Christy: Walnut macarons? Erm.. haven’t really left the gate with that one yet 😀
Hanne : Do explain the straw method! I’m intrigued!
dessert girl said,
December 27, 2008 @ 8:56 am
Those macaroons sound wonderful! Salted vanilla caramel, chocolate and black sesame? Yum!
EMMELYN said,
July 23, 2009 @ 10:00 pm
WOW MAY I JUST SAY…UR MACARON inspiration from the photo image and all that stuf u said about that chinese director is so cool…how u can transform the whole thing into a dessert….!!!! im a beginner at making macaron….this is my third week of about 12 batches…so far ive been using the italian method…used french method when i started n kinda failed each time….hav u always prefered italian m? anyway ur blog is super cool and i love julia @melanger too! fun bloggin!
Y said,
July 23, 2009 @ 10:21 pm
Hi Emmelyn! Thanks for your comment! I started out using the French method, but after trying the Italian one, I haven’t looked back! I find it more stable and I also get better yield from it.
z said,
December 7, 2014 @ 3:11 pm
I have a question how do you do it to get you sponge cake to look that way?? Is there a type of style of method that it is called ??
z said,
December 7, 2014 @ 3:12 pm
I have a question how do you do it to get you sponge cake to look that way?? Is there a type of style you use or method ??
Y said,
December 8, 2014 @ 11:25 am
z : Hi! It’s an El Bulli-style microwave sponge. If you Google it, you should be able to find some explanations, and probably recipes, pretty easily.