Daring Bakers Challenge : Macarons

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(Black sesame and nori macarons)

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Funnily enough, I’ve never been excessively interested in macarons. I appreciate their beauty and the degree of difficulty involved in their success. As many people have said before, it’s amazing how complex a process it is to get right, considering macarons consist of merely three ingredients. So I have all the respect in the world for bakers out there such as Helen, Aran and Julia who love these sugary treats and manage time and again to present perfect and creative versions of them.

With regards to this month’s challenge, I had every intention of attempting Claudia Fleming’s recipe, but my brain was unfortunately asleep the day I stepped into the kitchen. It was only when half way through the process that I realised I had been baking on autopilot, and had somehow managed to whip up a batch of my normal macaron recipe, as opposed to the one provided for the challenge!

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So I’m not sure if my contribution really counts towards this challenge, but here it is anyway. I made some bite-sized macarons flavoured with black sesame powder and paste, with dried seaweed (nori) garnishing the shells before baking. The combination worked well together, in my opinion, also because I quite like adding savoury elements to things that are quite sweet (as we all know macarons can be).

To keep things interesting, an impromptu dessert macaron was also cobbled together from items I scavenged from the fridge and pantry. Chocolate sauce, ganache, cake, cherries and vanilla cream formed a little nod to my obsession with Black Forest flavours.

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(Black Forest macaron)

Thank you Ami, for bringing macarons into the Daring Bakers repertoire!

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You can take the girl out of the ghetto, but you can’t take the gateau out of the girl

BlackForestGateau

(Black Forest Gateau with cherry chocolate jelly)

In a past or future life, I’d like to imagine myself as an accomplished writer. Someone who is proficient in conjuring up fact or fantasy. We don’t have any writers in the family (and I’m sure you won’t hear many Asian parents bemoaning that fact). Right now, I am happy to attempt to convey my emotions through the things I bake.

Fantasy : We approached the cottage built entirely from gingerbread. An old woman beckoned to us from the front window. Come inside, my dears, I have DSLR cameras you can use to take pictures of the house with.

Fact : A few weeks ago, I advanced another year in my life. It’s nauseating how cliched we become as we get older. Kids these days? I believe I have been known to use that phrase several times, without a trace of irony.

I don’t usually bother to celebrate my birthday in any big way. Vaguely in the same month, my family will congregate at a restaurant for dinner, and the boy will get me a gift. This year, I also decided to quietly bake myself a cake.

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Fantasy : She refused the glossy red apple the old woman offered her. Sorry, but I’m a locavore who only eats biodynamic and organic these days, she said.

Fact : It’s been a long time since I last made a Black Forest cake, and an even longer time since I’d eaten one. For many years, it was my favourite childhood cake. Every year I would request it from the same cake shop, for my birthday. One year, mom talked me into picking a fruit flan, for the sake of trying something different. It turned out to be quite a disappointing birthday. I suspect I even spent five years learning German in high school just so I could say Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte with conviction.

Somewhere along the way however, this cake fell out of favour (or flavour). But I got to thinking about it again, as one does any childhood memory, the further you travel away from being aged 9 or even 19.

My version is composed of a chocolate cake doused with cherry syrup, topped with cherry brandy mousse, bitter dark chocolate mousse, cherries and pools of chocolate sauce. Cubes of Kirsch flavoured chocolate jellies and dehydrated chocolate cake crumbs add a juicy, boozy burst and chocolate crunch respectively.

The chocolate sponge component is from Heston’s ultimate Black Forest cake recipe, which appears in his Fat Duck cookbook. I had initial reservations about the sponge, until I tasted it after letting it cool for an hour or two. Amazingly moist and moreish.

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Fantasy : Once overtime and union fees had been negotiated, the mice happily went to work, piecing together the dress that she was to wear to the ball.

Fact : I searched every drawer in the house for a small candle to fix on top of the cake before cutting into it, but it appears I don’t own any; just the emergency supersized candles with 4 – 5 wicks.

Tasting this cake, and blushing from the Kirsch, I was reminded of so many things. Sometimes revisting a favourite food is like meeting an old friend again. Your friendship may have fallen to the wayside and things might’ve been said along the way, but there’s no denying the history and the good times you’ve shared.

I wish I could relive those times, but the truth is, as good as the times were, they also involved mock cream, maraschino cherries and chocolate vermicelli. Those weren’t the glory days.

This cake reminds me of being 9. That greedy little 9 year old with a bowl haircut, and a penchant for fried foods and cake. Why do we suffer from so much nostalgia as we get older? I’m telling you, being 9 isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, especially when you can’t even choose your own cake. I prefer to raise my fork in celebration of the now, and to future things. To the friends I continue to meet along the way, and the boy who has hung around for the past 12 – 13 and not-really-counting years. Here’s to many more years of discovery and re-discovery, and if every now and then I encounter a Black Forest cake in my travels, I’ll be sure to say hello to it.

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An ode : Green tea and white chocolate cake, summer fruits, sesame nougatine

She is black. Pastel polka dots all over her body like a clown disguised as a leopard. Sweetness and joy, with a killer heel.

Every girl has her favourite pair of shoes. They are the ones that make her feel like a million dollars, whether she’s in jeans or a cocktail dress. The ones in which she clicks down the street proudly, feeling strong yet vulnerable. The ones that cost too many clams to obtain, but which have paid back in emotional dividends too complicated to calculate.

Yes, every girl has her favourite pair of shoes. This is an ode to mine.

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