Macaroons, Macarons (Coconut Macaroons for Passover)

While in Nantes, France, I was introduced to the delicate, delicious dessert called a macaron for the first time. Nothing new to French palates, but brand new to me. Mmm, so good! That was a few years ago, and now the little macaron sandwiches are becoming hip across the pond and replicated in many locales (to the chagrin of some). Multiple of my repatriated friends started making them, trying -  successfully, so I've heard! - to imitate the deliciousness found in French Pâtisserie shops.

Since I was introduced to macarons in France, the French pronunciation of the word is what I'm used to. For English speakers, though, "macaroon" is much easier to say, and seems to be the default pronunciation for either spelling. However, a "macaroon" to me is synonymous with the coconut dessert I've had since childhood and which is consumed in particularly large quantities over Passover. Even better, coconut macaroons are super easy to make, in contrast with the finicky macaron.

On the left we have the French macaron mini-sandwich, which comes in many flavours and colours (from Flickr user yuichi.sakuraba). On the right is a plain coconut macaroon (from Flickr user paige_eliz). Both of these treats measure about 1.5" or 4 cm in diameter.

If you've never had a coconut macaroon, they are bite-size desserts that take regular, dry coconut and transform it into a lightly-chewy dessert which bursts with flavour and sweetness. Baked until golden brown, the edges might get a little crispy, but the inside of macaroons stays soft and nearly gooey.

All this to say: both types of desserts are delicious, but this blog post is about a coconut macaroon recipe I created.


Coconut-Almond Macaroons
Airy and not sickly sweet, these are suitable for Passover but can be enjoyed throughout the year. I created this recipe after looking at other ones on the web and not being satisfied. The singular egg white makes them light and semi-fluffy without making meringues. The almond flavour is light; you may want to add extra almond flour.
Makes 2-3 dozen
preparation:10 minutes
baking: 10-15 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 cups shredded or dried coconut (found near the chocolate chips in the baking aisle)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4+ cup almond flour/almond meal (I found this in the 'health foods' section)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 egg white

Directions:

• Preheat over to 350°F
• Stir ingredients vigorously together in a bowl until well-mixed and sticky
• Spoon out (or let's be honest, I used my hands) a tablespoon at a time onto a lightly greased cookie sheet
• Bake for 10-15 minutes, until the edges start to colour.
• Let cool, and enjoy! Store in an air-tight container for up to 5 days. 

N.B. - I did not whip the egg white before adding it, and they turned out great. One less step! Also, I used parchment paper and lightly sprayed that with nonstick cooking spray.

My finished product. It's easy to split the recipe in two and add in chocolate to half (or more). I made regular and chocolate chip macaroons.

Optional additions (aka, do you want chocolate with that?):

• Chocolate chip macaroons - mix in 1/4 cup of chocolate chips before spooning out on to the cookie sheet. I would suggest mini-chips, because it was hard to make my regular-sized chips stay together with the rest of the macaroon during forming.
• Chocolate-covered macaroons - after letting the baked macaroons cool, melt some chocolate and dip them in! Half-covered, wholly dipped, it's up to you.
• Chocolate almond macaroons - melt 2 squares of unsweetened (baking) chocolate and mix it in before spooning them out onto the cookie sheet.

Happy Passover!

Curried leek and veggie soup with homemade bread bowls.

Winter 2012 has proved quite mild, to the point that it feels like Punxsutawney Phil appears to have made an incorrect prediction and spring is already creeping in. While excited for warmer weather, sunlight, and outdoor activities, part of me is hoping the weather will stay chilly a little longer so I can continue to enjoy two of my favourite winter activities: eating soups and wearing scarves.

This post is, predictably, about the first of those activities. I can write another post about the different ways I've discovered of wearing/knotting scarves, but I don't know if that's of interest.

Let's get on to the recipe! I present to you, "Curried Leek and Vegetable Soup" with homemade bread bowls:

I overestimated the amount the bowls would rise, so we had to refill the soup multiple times.

The soup was based off of the allrecipes.com curried leek soup, with multiple modifications, including making it vegetarian. I use leek as a base in most of my soups, but had not tasted the full kick this vegetable provides until it was at the centre of a recipe.


Serves four (4)
Ingredients:

• 3 medium leeks (outer leaves and any dark green parts removed), thinly sliced
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can navy or white beans
• 1 1/4 cup water
• 3-4 whole carrots, thinly sliced
• 2 celery ribs, thinly sliced
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 1/4 teaspoon white pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon mustard
• 1/8 teaspoon coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon thyme
• 1 cup (8 fluid ounces) milk or non-dairy substitute of your choice

Directions:

• In a soup or saucepan (original recipe suggested 3 qt), saute leeks and garlic in olive oil over medium heat until tender.
• Add the water, navy beans, carrots, celery and spices and bring to a boil.
• Reduce heat; cover and simmer for until vegetables are tender (10-20 minutes)
• Add the milk
• Blend until smooth* using an immersion blender, blender, or food processor. 
• Add more milk or water as needed to reach your preferred consistency.
• Serve immediately in bowls or bread bowls, or serve later and reheat as needed.

*whatever level of smoothness you desire. Less blending = more chunks, obviously.

Notes:
Vegetarian-izing it was unintentional: I forgot that I didn't have broth in my pantry, so I added navy beans and pureed them to give body and flavour. I'd read about another blogger using white bean puree as a cream substitute, and (successfully) experiemented with using the puree to replace broth instead of milk. I'm sure the taste was slightly different, but with the spices and the vegetables, the texture needed more "beefing" up than the flavour anyway.

With spices, I generally spin my lazy susan until I see something that I think would be a good addition, do a smell confirmation, then add a dash or two as needed. So... the volumes are approximate.


My bread recipe comes from the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. A few tips for making homemade bread bowls:

• Shape them carefully to get the size you want: mine turned out smaller than expected because they didn't rise a lot the second time, but then again the herb-wheat bread was kind of dense so more bread would have been too much to eat.
• Pair the bread and soup to complement each other's flavours: the herb-wheat bread had a wheat-y tang and soft herb flavour, which went well with the curried leek and veggie soup I made. For a stronger tasting soup, a simpler sourdough bread bowl might be better.
• Hollowing out the bowl is simple with the use of a grapefruit knife! slice off the top of the bowl, then use the angled serration to easily cut out as much of the crumb as desired. I did two turns: one with the blade pointed toward the middle of the bowl (cutting right inside the edge of the bowl), and a second with the blade pointed toward the crust (cutting from the center). I ended up with a sort of "ring" that could then be easily pulled out.

Enjoy!

This seems to be morphing into a food blog...

Unintentionally, my most recent posts are all about food. Whoops! Now that I've gotten Pinterest, I'm finding more and more new recipes, which makes me want to cook and bake! So expect more photos, I suppose.

I made a second Far Breton aux pruneaux last December for a French holiday party and took a picture this time; it was super well received! I was asked if I was bretonne even. Un tel compliment!

This time I added more prunes and put dollops of button on top before baking: the little sunburst patterns are from the butter.

Over the holidays I received a much longed-for pizza stone and pizza peel, which has made my bread-baking process even easier! I love fresh baked bread. My roommate's current favourite is my simple whole wheat bread (she made the slashes on this loaf, which turned out very well).

In addition to making normal bread loaves, last week I made homemade bread bowls for the first time. So good! This was one time I allowed myself to cut the bread while still hot, since soup was going inside immediately. The result? Deliciousness!

More on soup and breadbowls in my next post. Recipe included!