mulled wine macarons

mulled wine macarons

This photo is of easily the worst one of the bunch. I figured you can Google macarons and get a million results of perfect Parisienne treats. But I bet you’d struggle to find another that looks like Audrey.

I have been very lucky – expert tuition on how to make macarons, from the excellent Waitrose Cookery not once, but twice. This time Kenwood were laying on an event to promote their Boutique range. It’s a range of vivid and colour-themed small appliances. At the school each colour was arranged on a table with well-matching items which were very eye-catching.

They are gorgeous items, but here’s what else was eye-catching: the price. Each of these things are well made but I certainly can’t justify spending £55 on a kettle. Or £85 on a toaster. And when you have one item in the range, you’re going to want the rest… ouch.

I teamed with Helen to make macarons. The coloured cocktails had got to her a little, and she started piping little green nipples onto our pukkah pink blobs. We had a whale of a time.

mulled fruit juice waitrose

These macarons are made not with mulled wine, but mulled fruit juice from Waitrose. Heavy with spice and warmth, this juice made the perfect accompaniment to super-sweet and chewy macarons. The macaron recipe is Waitrose Cookery School’s, and I was inspired to make the mulled reduction by my previous trip to the macaron class.

Thanks to Z-PR for the fruit juice, and Clarion Comms for hosting the Kenwood event.

Mulled wine macarons (makes loads):

1 litre mulled fruit juice

1 tablespoon icing sugar

1 cinnamon stick

1 teaspoon cornflour

275g caster sugar

95g egg whites (approximately 3 egg whites)

½ tbsp red food colouring

275g ground almonds

275g icing sugar

95g egg whites (approximately 3 egg whites)

  1. Pre heat the oven to 145ºC. Cut out two sheets of parchment paper, the same size as the baking tray and set aside ready for piping.
  2. Boil the mulled fruit juice over a high heat with the cinnamon stick until reduced by half, and then add the icing sugar. Mix the cornflour with a splash of water and whisk into the fruit juice, and continue to reduce until thickened. Put aside to cool.
  3. For the Italian meringue: In a small saucepan, add the sugar and 100ml of water and mix until there are no lumps. Add the food colouring and place the saucepan over medium to high heat and place the sugar thermometer inside. The required temperature is 114C.
  4. In the electronic mixing bowl, add the 95g of egg whites with the whisk attachment. This will then be ready for the sugar syrup when the required temperature is reached.
  5. Once the sugar syrup has reached 110C, start whisking the egg whites on a medium speed and once the temperature has reached 114C, (the whisking egg whites should be frothy at this stage) lift the thermometer out and slowly pour the syrup down the side of the bowl ensuring not to splash yourself! Turn onto full speed and after approximately five minutes, the Italian meringue will become glossy and whipped.
  6. Meanwhile, whilst the meringue is whisking, we can make the paste. In a separate bowl, combine the ground almonds and icing sugar and add the other 95g of egg whites and mix with a wooden spoon until a paste has formed. The paste should be stiff.
  7. Once the Italian meringue is ready (soft peaks will form) this is combined with the paste in three stages. If it is over mixed the mix will become too liquid and the macaroons will become very flat once cooked. It is important to ensure a nice gentle mixing motion. The first addition of the meringue to the paste will be the most aggressive in order to ensure there are no lumps. The second amount of meringue must be folded in gently and the final addition of meringue must be extremely gentle.
  8. The macaroon mix is then ready to be piped. Using a spatula, fill the piping bag half way. Pipe some mix into each corner of the baking trays in order to stick the parchment paper onto the tray. Pipe in straight lines going from left to right leaving a 2cm gap in between each macaroon. These are now ready to be baked for 17-19 minutes at 145C.
  9. Once they are cooked, take the trays out of the oven and leave to cool. Pipe some of the sticky fruit juice inbetween two halves, before downing in one.

5 comments

  • Sorry mate – I think we part company here – mulled wine macarons? Cheez.

    I started following your blog because you seemed to be a bloke who was interested in proper food, with a bit of quirky Heston-bothering on the side.

    But all your posts recently have been product endorsements for whatever the Samanthas and Jocastas in PR land send you. Good luck with that.

    Mark

    • Hi Mark

      Sorry you feel that way. I’m not quite sure what proper food is, but I’ll cook and try pretty much anything. Apart from baked beans, yuck.

      Yes, sometimes I do get sent stuff and invited to events which is great fun. This site does need some money to keep running so as they say, every little helps. But I’m always honest about it, and never make the press-pumped product the star but always an adjunct to a recipe. I wasn’t exactly complimentary about the product up there, was I?

      There are plenty of blogs out there that are nothing more than cogs in press release machines: I sincerely hope you don’t think this site is going that way. I hope you stick around, there’s a cracking pie recipe coming up tomorrow which I was really chuffed with…

  • Aw thanks for the pretty Parisienne treats macarons mention (I was DEAD pleased with those photos, it feels ages since I took them now!). It took me about 8 times making macarons before I was happy with them and even now I regularly screw them up.

    And golly, there are as you say, plenty of blogs that push out PR content on a daily basis and you’re definitely not one of them!

    • Yours were about the third image search result and they looked so cure, I had to include them.

      Thanks for reassuring me that its not a constant wave of PR on this site!

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