It was inevitable.... The lemon glut continues.
Coupla lemon cakes a week. Every chicken dish is lemon chicken. Lemon juice squirted on the barbecued fish, whether the kids like it or not. All who visit invariably comment on our lovely lemon tree, and are quickly put on the spot. Me: "Would you like some lemons??" (innocently, but with crazy grin)
Hapless visitor: "Oh, er, yes ple...."
and I'm off, grabbing a bag, stuffing a dozen lemons in it.
"Here you go!" thrusting it into their only politely enthusiastic arms. Visitor makes a mental note not to come around again until they've used up the lemons from the last time....
and now:
Lemon macarons with lemon curd filling
100g egg whites, allowed to sit covered at room temperature for 3 days
30g castor sugar
5g powdered egg white (if you can't get it, Pavlova Magic works)
125g almond meal
200g pure icing sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tblsp finely grated lemon rind
Sift the icing sugar, baking powder and almond meal. It takes a long time to sift the almond meal and you have to push it through with a spoon but it should mostly pass through the sieve eventually. Discard the small quantity of lumpy bits that do not pass through the sieve. Combine castor sugar and powdered egg white (or Pavlova Magic) in a separate little bowl.
Whisk the egg whites until firm and stiff enough to keep its shape when you turn the bowl upside down, I prefer to whisk by hand. Gradually add the castor sugar/powdered egg white mix whisking continuously and vigorously after each addition.
Add the icing sugar/baking powder/almond meal mix in five batches, stirring until mixed each time. Lastly, stir in the lemon rind.
Transfer mixture to a piping bag and pipe rounds onto a baking sheet or baking paper, leaving an inch between each round, and let them sit on the bench for one hour or until they have developed a "skin" and do not feel sticky to the touch.
Bake at 120C for 6 minutes, turn the tray around, bake for another 6 minutes then remove from the oven. Slide the baking sheet off the tray and onto the bench; partly so you can cook the next batch, but also the cold bench stops the cooking process in its tracks. When they are completely cold, peel them carefully off the paper.
for the filling: (this recipe has appeared here before) rind and juice of 4 lemons
6 eggs
1 1/2 c sugar
125g butter
Lightly whisk the eggs and sugar together in a saucepan, then add the other ingredients. Whisk continually over a medium heat until the mixture has thickened to a custard-like texture then allow to cool in the pan. Decant into sterilised jars and refrigerate until set completely.
Spread a little onto a macaron like spreading jam thickly on bread, then stick another macaron on top.
Thoughts:
This time I weighed the egg whites... it's occurred to me that this minor detail might actually be integral to the success of the recipe! I guess I lucked out in this respect before, since 3 egg whites of the type I usually buy turned out to be pretty close to 100g!
In all honesty I didn't enjoy these quite as much as my previous efforts; the vanilla, coconut and berry fruit flavours. Maybe the natural sourness of citrus isn't the most crash-hot pairing with the delicate almond flavour of macarons. Maybe we are just getting a bit lemon-ed out.
Maybe this is my swan-song in the macaron department. Once I've sorta conquered something tricky in cooking I tend to lose interest.
Woa.
Did I actually use the word "conquer" with regard to my cooking prowess? HA!! Oh I totally crack myself up sometimes. Imagining generations of French pastry chefs spinning in their graves right now...
