Pro-curetember Day 25: Purple!
For Day 25's prompt of Purple, we'll be continuing on from yesterday's post for Baking/Cooking, by translating into English the recipe for the Cat Macaron from Kirakira Pretty Cure A La Mode Episode 5 of the Precure franchise. This recipe is a three star plus difficulty level out of three stars, indicating it is extremely difficult. Keep this in mind when baking.
Let's・La・Mazemaze!
What You'll Need
Macarons
1 egg white (about 35g or 1 and 1/4 oz)
30g, or 1oz. of granulated sugar
Small amount of red and blue, or purple food coloring. If you want a deep purple, use gel food coloring. Powdered coloring tends to make the color muddy, so use a lighter purple if using powdered.
40g Almond Flour
40g Powdered Sugar
Filling & Top Decorations
40g unsalted butter
50g powdered sugar
40g cream cheese
A little food coloring
Some raspberry jam
1 purple chocolate pen.
If using store-bought purple macarons and cream, you can move to the decoration step found in Step 12.
For your pre-preparation, Line a baking sheet with baking paper. Preheat your oven to 170 Celsius, or 338 Fahrenheit. Chill the egg whites. Sift together the Almond Flour and Powdered Sugar. Bring the butter and cream cheese to room temperature.
Step One
Put the egg whites in a bowl and whip until they form slight peaks. Add the granulated sugar and whip further until they form stiff peaks and become fluffy. Be careful, because if there is oil or moisture in the bowl, or if there is egg yolk mixed in with the egg whites, the mixture will not foam properly.
Step Two
Add your chosen food coloring to the mixture you made in Step One, and mix until you get the color you like. Fold it in until the batter is smooth, using a macaronage, if you wish for the color to be a little darker. A lighter color may be closer to your image, though.
Step Three
Sift the almond flour and powdered sugar mixture you made in the Pre Preparation into your mixture from Step Two, while still folding it in a macaronage.
Step Four
The dough should go from lumpy to smooth and shiny, and when you lift it, it should fall in ribbons and overlap. If you mix it too much, it will be runny, thin, and not rise too well. If you don't mix it enough, it will be crumbly, dull, and cracked.
Step Five
Place into a piping bag fitted with a round tip, and squeeze onto baking paper to a diameter of about 3cm. It might be easier to squeeze the right size if you place a sheet of baking paper with 3cm circles drawn on it underneath your baking paper.
Step Six
Leave it for about an hour to dry, until the surface no longer sticks to your hands when you touch it. It may take longer to dry on rainy or humid days, so work on sunny days with low humidity, if possible.
Step Seven
Bake in a preheated oven at 170 celsius, or 338 Fahrenheit, for about 2 minutes. Open the oven door once for about ten seconds, to lower the temperature, then bake in a 130 celsius or 266 fahrenheit oven for 15 to 18 minutes. Leave to cool on the baking tray.
Step Eight
We're now making our filling. Put the butter and powdered sugar in a bowl, and beat until fluffy. Then, add the smooth cream cheese and beat some more.
Step Nine
Set aside a small uncolored amount, and add your food coloring to the rest, mixing until you get the desired color.
Step Ten
Place a small star tip into a piping bag and pour in the colored cream that you made in Step Nine.
Step Eleven
Find Macarons of similar size, and pair them together, so you know which ones will maintain structure.
Step Twelve
Spread a small amount of raspberry jam onto one of the macarons, and squeeze the colored cream you made in Step 10 on top, then top with the other macaron and place in the refrigerator for half a day to set.
Step Thirteen
Place on a plate and pour the reserved uncolored cream into a piping bag to pipe the ears and center decoration.
Step Fourteen
Dip a purple chocolate pen in hot water, cut the tip, and draw the eyes, whiskers, nose, and tail of the Macaron cat. You can also draw a small star on baking paper and leave in the refrigerator to chill before placing it on top of the center decoration cream.
There you have it, the cat macarons found in Kirakira Pretty Cure A La Mode Episode 5. They're a difficult process and a difficult recipe, so I wish you all the best of luck with this kind of thing, fufufu~.
Procuretember Event by @pro-curetember
