Saturday, December 26, 2009

RING OUT THE OLD, AND BRING IN THE NEW...MacAttack 3

We're back and we can hear you loud and clear. We've had a great first round up here at Mactweets, and we've got tweets from many macpassionate folk whose feet are itching to go for another 'happy feet' dance. Jamie and Deeba are loving the response as much as you, and are now thrilled to announce the second challenge.

It's time to RING OUT THE OLD, AND BRING IN THE NEW! Yes indeed, with a brand new 2010 staring us in the face, we've thought up something for the next challenge...


Something about your macs should be NEW.
DO SOMETHING OR ADD SOMETHING YOU'VE NEVER DONE BEFORE BUT HAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO TRY!
"Maybe drying out fruit to create a flavor/color powder, try Italian meringue, try new flavor combos, try getting feet if you've never done that before... or use your macs to create a new dessert. Out with the old, in with the new!"

Because of the holidays, we're giving you a little extra time to post. Please have your Mac Attack Post up between January 10 and January 15 '10.


Here are the rules of the game:
  1. Once you have posted your Mac Attack macarons on your blog, please make sure you leave a comment with a link here on this post.
  2. Please link back to this challenge on your post.
  3. Please feel free to use the Mac Attack logo. It isn't mandatory but is a nice way to get the word out!
  4. Add the Mac Attack badge (logo) with link to your sidebar.
Round up will be on January 20, 2010.
Again, if we have as many or more than this last challenge, we will divide the round up into groups to make sure everyone's macs are visible and you have the time to visit all of them.

And attention please!!! add Mactweets to your RSS feed or sign up for e-mail alerts. This way you will always be in the loop and know as soon as we add a new post, a tutorial or a round up. And, as always, spread the word!


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Monday, December 14, 2009

Round up part II

Deeba and Jamie are now proud to offer you Mac Attack Round Up Group #2!

Just as fantastic as Group #1, but we had so many bakers that we wanted to offer less at once and allow you the time to visit each and every blogger and see their macs up close and personal. So enjoy the rest of the Mactweets!

Mamakamal
of Moroccan Cuisine Marocaine


Mardi of Eat Live Travel Write


Meeta of What's For Lunch Honey?


Shaz of Test With Skewer



Hana aka Heavenly Housewife of From Donuts to Delirium


Tiffany of Foodfinery


Lauren of Coffee Muffins


Deborah of Italian Food Forever


Barbara of Vino Luci Style


Casey of Kitchen Witch Cookie aka Tastestopping


Denise of Chez Us


Asha of Fork Spoon Knife


Bron of Bron Marshall


Vivian of Island Dreaming in Oklahoma


Alessio of Recipe Taster


Cristie of The Table Runner


And Jamie is proud to present her sister Sue's first ever macs (without a pastry bag)


Catty of The Catty Life enjoying eating macs with us!

Thank you each and every one of you for participating and we hope to see you back every month for a New (flavors, colors, styles) and Improved (our macs of course!) Mac Attack!

Stay tuned!


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Saturday, December 12, 2009

MAC ATTACK 2 - Macinspirational Round-up

The First Official Mactweets Mac Attack has rolled to an end and we all had a great time! Deeba and Jamie thank everyone for participating. We were not only amazed at the number of you who joined us in the Mac Kitchen, but thrilled with the energy, effort and fun you guys brought along with you and put into it. We have a fabulous Round Up: over 30 of you baked along with us and some are still sending us their links. So be patient for this round up: we have divided it into two to give everyone the chance to visit each blog and check out all of the macs, and what a stunning array of flavors and creativity we have in our Mac Kitchen.

Here is round Up #1:

Jamie
of Life's a Feast


Deeba
of Passionate About Baking




Sunita of Sunita's World


Sarah of Maison Cupcake


Finla aka Happy Cook of My Kitchen Treasures


Renee of Flamingo Musings


Simone of Junglefrog Cooking


Paula of Dragon's Kitchen


Pam of The Cooking Ninja


El of Heaven in a Wild Flower


Nicola of Cherrapeno


Lisa of Lisa is Cooking


Faithy The Amateur Baker


Barbara of Barbara Bakes


And fabulous Mowie of Mowielicious



Enjoy! Share recipes! Round Up #2 will be posted in 2 days!

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Thursday, December 10, 2009

MAC TWEETS DECEMBER DEADLINE!


The first official Mactweets due date is here! I know, crazy to be making macs right before the holidays, right smack dab in the middle of all the holiday baking, but so goes the passion! I know that some of you have already posted your macarons, and heaven knows that Deeba and Jamie are trying to keep track so as not to miss one Mac Maker for the round up, but please leave a comment here with the link back to your Mac Post so you can be sure to be counted in the round up.

We hope to have the round up by December 15.Thanks and Happy Holidays.


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Friday, November 13, 2009

ONE STEP FORWARD & TWO BACKWARDS... It's all about FEET!

“We have not wings we cannot soar; but, we have feet to scale and climb, by slow degrees, by more and more, the cloudy summits of our time.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow






What are these invaluable things called FEET? When she failed 6 times making macs on a single morning trying to win over the first macattack, Deeba was DISTRAUGHT! Was in tears & constantly on twitter & on the phone with Aparna in Goa, taking non-stop about feet. Mr PAB had this very perplexed look but dared not utter a word. He finally mustered up the courage later when success 'happened' on the 7th attempt! What the hell are FEET? he asked. By which time feetless boxes of macs had been stuffed under sofas, inside cupboards ... everywhere. The next man who raised the FEET question was Mowie, and we thought to ourselves ... Is this 'FEET' question a girls' thing? The bunch of us just took to the word FEET nonchalantly & got down to baking...



Photo courtesy Sunita Bhuyan  Underneath the top smooth shell of the macaron is a ruffled skirt called FEET. 

Those feet are the centre of our MacTweet universe. We can live with them, but we can't live without them. We are emotional about 'em...

From the wailing tweet... "Boohooo this batch had no feet", ...

...to the high pitched one in Cooking Ninja style "U'll get your feets dearie. Can see you jumping up & down in yr kitchen shouting 'I got feets! I got feets!' like u won lotto. ;)"... you can hear it loud and clear!"


~

Macpassionate & macobsessed, at the end of the day, it's all about FEET! Our world here had been narrowed down in perspective. This mac obssessed group sees FEET everywhere.




Besides real mac feet, we find feet elsewhere too. Nancy Sinatra now sings to us "These feet are made for walkin' ... and takes us back to days when the old LP record with her booming voice would play! Or when Colloquial Cook recently tweeted to Deeba, "I fell off my chair when I saw your macs". Her immediate tweetback " Shall I give you a 'feet' ... oops hand". We have Vino Luci talking about 'feet at size 11', and the party's on...



... Got a 'feet' tale? Share it here, share a giggle...

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Sunday, November 08, 2009

MERINGUE TUTORIAL

WHIP IT! WHIP IT GOOD!
Probably the most delicate part of making perfect macarons is the meringue. Some of us are passionate about whipping egg whites and follow our instincts surely and without a second thought. Others, not so much. We want to give some tips here about whipping up a meringue that won’t let you down as well as the process of folding the whites into the powdered sugar/ground almond mixture.Our first suggestion is to follow your own instinct. If you doubt yourself and wonder if the whites have been whipped enough, then just beat them a little more. Better a bit too much than not enough.
WHIPPING EGG WHITES
One important thing that Jamie learned from Chef B, pastry chef and instructor at the professional cooking where she worked, is that it is important to avoid whipping whites in a glass bowl. Why? The glass has no “tread”, nothing to grip onto, so the whites slip around the bowl and it is impossible to completely whip them; you will always find liquid underneath the stiff whites. Copper is the best surface to whip whites on, if not then use a plastic bowl. Jamie always whips her whites in a plastic bowl and they are always perfectly and 100% whipped.
  • First, break your whites into a very very clean bowl (no grease!). You can add a drop of fresh lemon juice plus a few grains of salt to the whites. This (like cream of tartar) helps stabilize your whites.
  • Now, first “break” your whites by mixing them on low speed for about 30 seconds, then increase your mixer speed to medium then high speed.
  • As soon as the whites are frothy and foamy, start to add the sugar, a teaspoon at a time, whipping continuously. Keep whipping until the whites are stiff – you should be able to hold the bowl upside down over your head and the egg whites shouldn’t budge! If they drip onto your head then you haven’t whipped them enough!

Now, there are two schools of folding when it comes to macarons: folding the powdered sugar/almond mixture into the whites or the whites into the sugar blend. Jamie does the latter. Now, no need to try and fold a third of the whites into the dry ingredients as you would for cake batter. Too dry. She adds all the meringue to the dry ingredients then, using her silicon spatula, she folds; scoop down to the bottom around the edge of the bowl, lift and fold, turning the bowl with your left hand as you go.
Make sure you are scraping the dry ingredients from the bottom as you go! This process should be done quickly – as few folds as possible – and gently so you don’t crush the whipped whites.The batter should be completely blended and homogeneous, thick and smooth enough so it falls from the spatula in a thick ribbon or, as Helen describes it, like lava flowing. To test to see if it is ready to pipe, take a clean plate and drop about a teaspoon of the batter on the plate. The point of the batter on top of the mound should flatten and disappear within 30 seconds. If it doesn’t then give the batter a few more folds and turns before testing again. They speak of 30 to 50 turns and folds but I don’t know, I lose count around 10. Again, in Jamie’s opinion, better a few extra turns than a few too few.
Now, take your previously prepared pastry bag with wide tip, fold down the sides, opening up the center. Holding the base of the bag where the tip is (the folded down upper part of the pastry bag should be over your hand) gently scoop up quantities of the batter with your spatula and place it down into the pastry bag as far as it will go, to the tip if possible. Keep filling it up, pulling the pastry bag back up as you fill it. Now push then squish down the batter towards the tip to get the batter into the tip and get out air bubbles, twist the bag closed at the top of the batter and pipe!Hold your pastry bag upright over the center of the drawn circles, squeeze, trying to get each mound out in one push. When the batter has almost come to the edge of the circle, stop pushing batter and flick the pastry tip away from the mound of batter in a sharp quick motion. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll leave behind a minimal point, which will then “melt” into the mound. If you are sprinkling something onto the surface of the shells (half the shells as only half are tops to the sandwich), do so now – colored sugar, finely chopped nuts or whatever.
Now just wait. Leave them babies alone for 45 minutes to an hour – again a bit longer is better. The first time you make macs, gently and barely touch the surface of one and you’ll see that it is wet and sticky like fresh batter. When you think the mac shells are ready to go in the oven, again gently touch just the surface of one – you should be able to feel that a sort of skin has formed. It is no longer like freshly piped batter. If you can’t feel a difference then let them sit for a bit longer until you do feel this skin. Now bake...

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