Ainil Bashirah

smilingfork:

Hot Chocolate Brownies

Difficulty:
★☆☆☆☆ (very easy)

Yield:
9 brownies

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup white chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips, divided
• 3/4 cup mini marshmallows

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8x8-inch baking dish with foil; coat foil with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together melted butter, sugar and egg until well combined. Whisk in dry ingredients until just combined. Stir in white chocolate chips and 1/4 cup milk chocolate chips until combined. Scrape batter into prepared dish and top with additional 1/4 cup milk chocolate chips.
3. Bake 20-25 minutes or until set and crusty looking around the edges. Top with marshmallows; flatten marshmallows with the tips of your fingers. Dust additional cocoa powder on top, if desired.

food-fix:

double scoop - grape float (by Shawna Lemay)

katcakes:

What do you do when you have a packet of Oreos lying around? You twist it, separate the cream and the biscuit, process the biscuits and add them into a macaron mixture to create your own Cookies and Cream Macarons. A cookie within a cookie. 

I initially wanted it to look more like an oreo, but my first batch of macarons didn’t turn out cookie like… but rather cakey, due to the amount of dry ingredients I had. I re-did my macaron mixture and decided to stick with the cookies and cream appearance, almost similar to a cookies and cream ice cream. Greyish, with tints of black and white, which is what these macarons look like. And, because I used oreos, they have a slight oreo taste in them.

I had to fiddle around with my normal macaron recipe to make room for the cookie crumbs, meaning I had to reduce the amount of almond meal in the macaron. It’s essential that you process your cookies until they form a very fine texture, almost similar to flour or cocoa powder. Sifting it a couple of times will help. Also, to keep with the inspiration of an oreo, rather than a ganache, I used a light and fluffy fudge icing and added the cream bits of the oreo into this icing. 

DON’T FORGET MACARON DAY IS IN TWO WEEKS! Get your macaron on and head to Adriano Zumbo’s Balmain Patisserie on the 27th! 

Cookies and Cream Macarons (adapted from Jose Marechal’s Secrets of Macarons)

Ingredients

• 80g ground almonds
• 100g icing sugar
• 30ml water
• 100g caster sugar
• 2 x 40g egg whites
• 30g processed Oreo cookie crumbs (roughly 3 whole Oreos)

For the White Chocolate Fudge Icing

• 200g white chocolate
• 1/4 cup thickened cream
• Cream from Oreos

Method

1. Process then carefully sift the ground almonds, icing sugar and Oreo crumbs (this is called the tant pour tant). Set aside.
2. In a saucepan, bring the water and caster sugar to the boil. Without stirring, make sure the temperature of the resulting syrup doesn’t go above 115 degrees Celsius.
3. Gently beat 40g egg whites to soft peaks, then increase the speed of the beater when the temperature of the syrup passes 105 degrees Celsius. When the syrup reaches 115 degrees Celsius, remove the saucepan from the heat and pour the syrup in a thin stream into the beaten egg whites. Continue to beat the meringue for about 10 minutes, so that it cools. 
4. Combine the tant pour tant and the remaining unbeaten egg whites, making a smooth almond paste.
5. Using a flexible spatula, incorporate about a third of the meringue into the almond paste to loosen the mixture a little, then add the rest of the meringue, working the batter carefully. 
6. Fill a piping bag fitted with an 8mm nozzle with batter. Attach a sheet of baking paper to each baking tray, placing small dots of batter in each corner. Pipe out small, regular and well-spaced rounds, each about the size of a walnut. Lightly tap the bottom of the trays and allow the macarons to form a crust at room temperature for 30 minutes.
7. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius.
8. Bake in the oven for 14 minutes. When you take them out, carefully place the baking paper on a dampened benchtop: the shells will be easier to remove.

For the White Chocolate Fudge Icing

1. Bring cream to a boil over a small saucepan. Once heated through, pour cream over white chocolate in a small stainless steel bowl. Mix to combine, then set aside to cool.
2. Once cooled and mixture has thickened, beat together with an electric beater until mixture is light and fluffy. Fold in chopped pieces of Oreo cream.
3. To assemble, pipe mixture onto macaron shells, then sandwich together.

ENJOY! :D