Rose, lychee & raspberry macarons

Oh no, I've accumulated quite a bit of a blogging backlog of the past month's bakes!  Not sure why, but lately I've been suffering from a bit of a block whenever I sit down to post.  Any advise?

Pink and girlie seems to be the common theme for this post and the one before on Hidemi Sugino's Mariee.  It was a pure coincidence.  Pink is such a lovely colour for macarons.  And yes, I have a thing for brightly coloured macarons.

This is another one from Pierre Hermé and is a combination of lychee, rose and raspberry flavours (he refers to this combination of flavors as ispahan).  As usual, PH recipes don't disappoint.  The only issue I had was the use of canned lychees as specified in the recipe - the lychee flavor wasn't as strong as I preferred and I'm not sure if using fresh lychees would make a difference.  Something I'll have to try to find out. 

Recipe below makes about 72 macarons, adapted from Pierre Hermé's "Macarons"

Raspberry jelly:

420g fresh raspberries

35g caster sugar

2 pcs gelatin leaves

Soak gelatin leaves in cold water.  Puree raspberries and sugar together, then strain.  Heat puree to about 45C and add gelatin leaves.  Pour into gratin dish lined with clingflim to a depth of about 4mm.  Leave to cool in room temperature then in freezer till set. Cut jelly into 1.5cm squares and return to freezer while working on the rest of the macarons.

Macaron shells:
300g ground almonds300g icing sugar
110g aged egg whites
approx 4g strawberry food colouring
approx 4g carmine red food colouring

For the Italian meringue:
- 300g caster sugar
- 75g mineral water
- 110g aged egg whites

Sift together icing sugar and ground almonds in a large bowl. Stir food colouring into egg whites, then pour into icing sugar and ground almonds but do not stir.

To make italian meringue, heat water & caster sugar to 118C.  At 115C, start whisking egg whites.  When sugar syrup reaches 118C, pour it over egg whites, whisking continuously till meringue to cools to 50C.  Fold meringue into ground almond-icing sugar mixture.  Spoon batter into piping bag. Pipe rounds of batter about 3.5cm in diameter, spacing them 2cm apart on lined baking trays. Rap baking trays on work surface to smooth out batter & remove any big air bubbles.

PH's instructions are to leave shells to stand for at least 30 minutes until they form a skin, then bake them in fan oven for 12 minutes at 180C.  From past experience this doesn't always work for me under Hong Kong's weather conditions, so instead I dry the piped batter for 15 minutes in the oven at 65C, then without removing the macarons, increase the temperature to 150C and bake for 14 to 15 minutes.  Either way, during the last 4 minutes of baking open and close the oven door twice to let out steam.  Once out of the oven, slide shells on to cooling rack and allow to cool completely before removing from silicon mat / parchment.

Lychee & rose ganache:
410g white chocolate, chopped
250g lychee puree
60g whipping cream

3g rose essence

Melt chocolate over bain marie.  Bring cream and puree to boil, then pour over chocolate in 3 batches.  Add rose essence and stir till smooth. Pour ganache into gratin dish and press clingfilm over the surface of ganache.  Set aside in fridge for ganache to thicken.

Assembly: 

Pipe a generous mould of ganache on shells and lightly press a cube of raspberry jelly into the centre.  Pipe a dot of ganache on top then cover with another shell.  Store macarons for 24 hours in fridge and bring out 2 hours before serving.