Rose & cranberry cookies, and a little about my 2012 so far

Oh dear, is anyone still reading this blog? =P  Seems like ages since I last posted... I apologize to anyone that has been visiting for how quiet it has been here.

(clockwise from top left: rose & cranberry cookies, coffee & dulce de leche macarons, blackberry mouse on biscuits à la cuillère, with peach mouse insert and biscuit joconde base and earl grey chocolate macarons)
 
With the first 9 months of 2012 behind us, yesterday I heard a friend ponder out loud - where did 2012 go?  It got me thinking that the first 3 quarters of this year, and in particular the summer, did go by rather quickly for me, which tends to happen when there is a lot going on.  I started the year with a couple of months working from home, then it was adjusting to a new office and role at work in central Hong Kong as opposed to being at ICC in Kowloon, then it was planning for our beautiful wedding which took place in Bali, Indonesia, in August (and I know I haven't mentioned the wedding at all till now), then we also got ourselves a new home which we basically tore everything out and started the design and renovation works from bare walls and flooring.  2012 has been good so far and I'm very thankful.

Right now I'm looking forward to moving into our new place by early next month.  I'll have a new kitchen to work in, including a new oven which always takes some time getting used to.  The last quarter of any year tends to be my favorite for a number of reasons - the weather cools down considerably; i really enjoy Christmas and the feasting that comes with the holiday season; both Herr Scherrer and I have our birthdays in October; work at the office tends to slow down; we usually start planning for next year's holiday trips which gets me happy and excited.

I've accumulated quite a backlog of recipes and pictures of bakes that I want to share here, but as I was composing this post I couldn't decide what to share first.  Do I go by chronological order? Alphabetical?  I eventually decided on posting up a collection of photos taken the last few months and will endeavor to share recipes and/or sources of these in the next few posts.  Please leave a comment if you have preference for any to be posted first. 

(clockwise from top left: banana mousse cake with rum chocolate joconde base and mango & kirsch biscuit joconde, opera, free-form berry open tart, banana caramel roll)
 
As for today, I thought I'll tell you about these wonderful rose and cranberry cookies, which I came across while looking for something I could make as wedding favours.  I'm not awfully big into rose flavor, but the idea of these cookies sounded so romantic and sweet.  The original recipe can be found here and I adapted it a little by adding in 1/4 tsp of rose essence.

What I love about these cookies is that the rose flavor is not overpowering.  In fact, you don't really smell the rose flavor until you bite into the cookies.  The cranberries add a chewy munch to the cookies.  It was perfect with a cup of coffee or tea.

Promise I'll be back soon!

Recipe below makes about 20 cookies

50g icing sugar
100g butter
1/4 tsp salt
180g all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 cup dried rose petals
1/4 tsp rose essence
1/3 cup dried cranberries
approximately 1 tbsp cold water

Sift flour and baking soda together.  Soak rose petals in cold water to soften.  Cream together icing sugar, butter and salt.  Drain rose petals, keeping the water aside.  Add flour mixture, rose petals and essence into butter mixture.  Mix in the added ingredients, adding cold water a little at a time till dough starts to cling together to form a ball (you don't have to finish using the entire 1 tbsp of cold water.  Add cranberries towards the end when dough starts to come together. Roll dough between baking paper till its 0.5cm thick.  Chill for 20 minutes before cutting into rectangular or square pieces.  Bake in 165C preheated oven for 20 minutes, followed by 155C for another 10 minutes, till cookies are brown.


 

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.