Lemon Macarons With Lemon Curd

Life was bit busy nowadays, almost a week of sickness made me super lazy and very much tired, obviously i had loads of stuffs left aside during those nasty days. Finally since yesterday,am having foods as before (yep i couldnt feed correctly during more than 3days coz of the nasty high fever and my tastebuds were completely dead) and trying to finish all the leftover stuffs.Dont talk about cooking now,am yet to cook different dishes and still didnt started really cooking as before,just having usual quick and easy foods. I really need someone to pull or kick me to cook with full spirit as before.

Coming to today's post, every 15th of the month we Baking Partners, a group of home bakers will be baking something specially and this month's challenge is the famous French macarons. I dont have words to say how i love macarons and we never failed to get them from a famous shop here, thats a real advantage of living in Paris, you can get easily this fabulous devils in every pastry shops and Paris streets are filled with many bakery and pastry shops,so obviously macarons are one of our family favourites. I tried my hands in making macarons long back and my first Macarons turned out simply awesome. When i saw our this month's challenge with french macarons as challenge, i was really happy to make them again. Vidhya of A Portion to Share and Swathi of Zesty South Indian Kitchen,the brain child of this event, chosed this fabulous macarons.

Macarons may sounds really easily, but they are truly very hard to make and you have to be very careful while mixing the flour & sugar mixture to the beaten snow like egg whites, this part plays an important role in making macarons. Overmixing or undermixing will show their faces while your macarons starts baking. After many trials and many disasters,i seriously learned few important things highly recommanded while making macarons. Obviously my lemon macarons came out extremely prefect.I went for lemon curd for the filling, this lemon curd balanced very much the sweetness of my macarons and we just loved it.

Recipe Source: Martha Stewart

2nos Large egg whites (keep in room temperature for 48hours/2days)
1cup Confectioner's sugar
3/4cup Almond flour
1/4cup Superfine sugar
1tsp Lemon zest
pinch Salt/cream of tartar
1/4tsp Yellow food colour powder

Take the confectioner's sugar and almond flour in a food processor and pulse it until well combined, sift the mixture twice with the food colour, finally add the lemon zest,keep aside.

Whisk the whites with salt with a beater on medium speed until soft peaks form, reduce the speed to low and add the superfine sugar gradually.

Increase the speed to high and whisk until stiff peaks form (approximately 8 minutes).

Add the flour-sugar mixture over the whites, fold until the mixture turns shiny and smooth (this is called macaronage, if you take the batter with a spatula, the batter of the macaron should fall like a ribbon)

Now transfer to a pastry bag filled with a plain round tip.

Meanwhile line baking sheets over two baking trays, now pipe out small rounds with enough spaces between them on the line baking sheets, until the batter gets finished.

Tap the bottom of the baking try to the release the air from the piped batter.

Let them sit in room temperature for 30minutes to allow the skins to form(if you touch the top of the piped macarons, you can feel the top is hard and no batter will stick your finger)

Preheat the oven to 300F,bake the macarons for 20minutes, rotate the baking sheet half way for even baking, remover from oven and transfer to a cooling rack.

Lemon Curd:
55grms Butter
225grms Sugar
2nos Lemons
2nos Eggs

Put a large bowl over a pan of water. Put this on the heat, and once the water has come to the boil,put the unsalted butter,sugar into the bowl.

Meanwhile, grate the rind of two lemons and squeeze their juice into another bowl.

Once the butter has fully melted, add the rind and juice to your large bowl over the pan.

Finally, beat two eggs and pour them into the mixture.

Stir the mixture with a wooden spoon. Keep it moving slowly all the time so that it coats the edges of the bowl.

This will allow it to start cooking on the hot glass. Over the next 20 to 30 minutes it will thicken and you may start to see some white parts forming in the otherwise yellow mixture. This is perfectly normal.

Eventually you will see that the mix has become considerably thicker and you will be able to draw the spoon through it and see the bottom of the bowl.

Once you have reached this stage it is ready to be poured into the jar.

Remove the pan from the heat and very carefully ladle the hot mixture into a sterilised jar using a funnel if necessary to help you get it in, without it running down the sides.

Seal the jar so that it is airtight and store the curd in the fridge. It should keep for around a month

 Assembling the macarons:
Take a macaron,fill it with half a teaspoon of lemon curd and close it with an another macaron. Arrange them in a box and conserve it in fridge atleast for a day.

Enjoy!

Notes:
Use always food colours in powder form or gel food colouring, dont use liquid food colouring, this will spoil the macaron batter.

Piped macaron should sit in room temperature for 30 minutes before baking.