Do you ever wish you had a giant macaron the size of
a cake? Yeah, me too. So, that’s pretty much what this is. A giant macaron
that’s coffee hazelnut flavored and fucking delicious. As of right now, it’s
still my favorite, and I’m writing this in November (after my 22nd challenge). I will say you need to start this THE DAY BEFORE you actually are
going to make it. You need to let the “cake layers”? Merengue layers? Rest in
the oven overnight.
Here’s the recipe I used: https://www.butterbaking.com/2015/10/21/coffee-and-hazelnut-dacquoise/
For
the dacquoise AKA cake layers:
70 g hazelnut meal (flour) *I didn’t use this much
because it’s hella expensive and I wasn’t going to buy two bags, so I just did
50 g and did more of the almond meal.
80 g almond meal
185 g powdered sugar, sifted *you DO want to sift;
again, with like a regular cake, I don’t do that, but for this, you should.
A pinch of sea salt
6 egg whites
½ c granulated sugar *can we talk about how this
recipe has half metric measurements and half American measurements?
Making
it:
1. Preheat oven to 225 F.
2. Line two or three sheet trays with parchment paper.
Use an 8-inch round cake tin as a stencil to draw 3 8-inch circles on the
parchment paper. Flip the paper over and grease the paper. *I used two sheet trays
because who has three? It was tight, but I made it work. You could also turn a 13 x 9 pan upside down and use that as an additional tray. I've done it.
3. In a medium bowl, combine hazelnut meal, almond
meal, powdered sugar, and salt together.
4. In a stand mixer with whisk attachment, beat egg
whites until they reach soft peaks. *the peaks will fall back on themselves a
bit.
5. While still mixing, add the granulated sugar slowly
and beat until you get stiff peaks. *where they stand up freely like an
independent woman!
6. Gently fold the dry mixture into the egg mixture.
The mixture will look goopy. *Kind of like macaron mixture because that’s
basically what it is. If you haven’t tried out the macaron recipe I did, you totally should! It's the first post on this blog :)
7. Fill a piping bag with a round nozzle.
8. Using the stencil, pipe the three circles with
meringue and fill them in. *I didn’t quite know how they wanted me to fill them
in, so I just kept on swirling all the way in like a lollipop. I also had a bit
extra, so I made little macarons in case I wanted to decorate with them- which
I did!
9. Bake the dacquoise for 3 hours. Turn off the oven and
leave them in the CLOSED oven to dry for at least 6 hours or overnight. *I put
a post-it on my oven because my husband likes to unintentionally sabotage.
For
the coffee buttercream:
110 g milk
1 tsp vanilla bean paste *I didn’t have this, so I
just used vanilla extract
70 g granulated sugar
10 g cornstarch
2 egg yolks
220 g unsalted butter, softened and cubed *how do
you cube something that is soft????
3 tbsp instant coffee
Pinch of sea salt
Making
it:
1. Bring the milk and vanilla to a simmer in a medium
pot. *Again, if you’re using vanilla extract, wait til it’s off the heat to
add.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together sugar, cornstarch,
and egg yolks.
3. Pour the milk in a steady stream into the egg
mixture, stirring constantly. *Be gentle at first- you don’t want the eggs to
get all pissed and scramble on you, so do like you’re getting into a hot tub.
Put one toe in at a time.
4. Transfer the mixture back to the pot. Continue
mixing until the mixture goes back to a boil and cooks for one minute.
5. Pour the custard back in a bowl and cover with
plastic wrap directly touching the surface.
6. Refrigerate until cool.
7. Once cool, place in a stand mixer and whisk until
creamy.
8. Add the butter, one cube at a time, whipping on
medium speed until completely incorporated between each addition.
9. Once the butter has been added, add the salt and
coffee and whip until combined.
Assembly:
1. Gently peel the meringue from the parchment paper.
2. Place one meringue on a serving tray. *I always put
a dab of buttercream under it to help it stay.
3. Spread 1/3 of the buttercream onto the first layer.
*I had to be stingy with my buttercream and still almost ran out. The original recipe shows these cute additional dots of buttercream around the top and bottom for decoration. I literally can't imagine how they had that much buttercream left over. Maybe double the recipe for the buttercream. No one will be mad at that. You don't NEED it, but it would make decorating easier.
4. Continue stacking, and then cover the whole thing
with the buttercream. *I decorated with some of the baby macarons (and crumbled
some around the edges also).
Difficulty: 3
Amount of Time: 3 (but not all active time)
Awesomeness: 5
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