Bake Off Week Four - Italian Meringue

A week of tortes, creme caramel and meringues led to days of indecision. There was general disagreement in the house as to what my tasters were happy to subject themselves to. There was a 50/50 split of delight or disgust concerning creme caramel and two tasters won't eat cream unless heavily disguised. Tut.

The towering gateaux seemed a bit vulgar to me so a slight cheat, this week a foray into Italian meringue, but in more delicate form. Ever since my husband gave me an exquisite copy of Ladurée: Sucré I have wanted to have a crack at macaroons, which should be made with meringue and an almond paste. My copy is not translated, so fearing my hazy GCSE French might be my undoing, I used Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secret's to guide me with it's reassuringly comprehensive method.

The Italan meringue was simple but I wouldn't want to attempt it without a sugar thermometer or my beautiful red KitchenAid for hands free mixing. After beating egg white to firm peaks, a sugar syrup heated to 120°c is introduced, which partially cooks the egg. It needs a further few minutes of beating, producing a gloriously glossy, creamy whip.

Foolishly, in my excitement to try Italian meringue, I ignored the directions to make the almond paste first. The meringue should be folded into the macaroon paste whilst still warm. Whoops. The paste is a stiff marzipan of equal parts icing sugar and ground almonds brought together with egg white. Folding it into the meringue without overbeating would have been easier with some heat. I flavoured one third of the mix with molten dark chocolate, coloured one third pink and the remainder yellow. Raymond uses cacao paste for chocolate flavour. Good for him, you can't get in Morrisons.

Ideally the biscuits should be even in size after baking, so each dollop of mixture needs precision. I made a card template with 3cm circles, coloured in with black marker pen, then laid baking paper over, and piped to size. Some baked beautifully, rising to shiny domes but others cracked and spread which is apparently due to overbeating at the folding stage.

I glued the yellow macaroons with lemon curd, the pink ones with homemade raspberry oven jam, and made a chocolate ganache for the remainder. I thought the chocolate were delicious, sweet chewy crispness counterbalanced by bitter fudge filling -  the rasperry were most popular with everyone else. 

This is special occasion cooking, requiring a tidy kitchen and a quiet mind. I found the macaroons a faff to make and it's difficult to make time for this sort of baking. I don't know if I will revisit the recipe to tweak although I am wondering about running a fresh rasperry syrup through the plain macaroon base. And coffee macaroons. With hazelnut paste?