The Earth laughs in flowers.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My plane had arrived that morning and I found my way – taxi? Metro? I truly can’t remember – back to his house. My trip had been long and tiring, back from deep, dark Africa, and I headed straight for a shower. The house was empty, no one home, so I took my time, pampered myself, hot bath, shampoo… and slipped into my gold satin robe just as he walked in. He had wondered nervously if I would make that decision to return, to join him, doubted that my love was strong enough, real enough to come back. But come back I did. And I walked into his open arms and he wrapped me in his warm embrace, never to let go.
And he had brought me a bouquet of tulips. Yes, I still remember the tulips, orange and red and yellow, wrapped in crisp white paper, fragrant and beautiful. We weren’t a couple made for roses. Roses, gorgeous, deep red or pale pink, roses are too traditional, too mundane, a flower one is expected to give to a lover along with diamonds and Champagne. I’ve always preferred deep, mysterious, blood-red garnets to diamonds, voluptuous, lush peonies or frilly, feminine carnations to roses, a nice, fruity white wine to Champagne. We prefer quiet, out of the way holidays on our own to spending a week at the current hot spot where we can see and be seen, prefer picnics in a vineyard, pulling roasted chicken apart with our fingers and drinking wine straight out of the bottle as Marty dashes in circles around us to a skiing holiday in the Alps. We choose museums and markets, strolling hand in hand through winding, narrow streets, eating in hard-to-find spots with the locals to sun-baked beaches, cruise ship buffets and evenings under strobe lights and pounding music. We are no ordinary couple and the gems, the gifts, the flowers we choose reflect our outlook on life, our unpredictability, a lifestyle some may call bohemian, our romance and passion for life as it is, not as we wish it to be.
Flowers are loves truest language.
- Park Benjamin
On our wedding day, his sister, a gardener and horticulturist by profession, brought us carloads of flowers, purple and blue, cream and pink, roses, yes, but globe thistles and fuchsia, chrysanthemums and irises and more I can’t name, and created arrangements, vases and bowls filled with flowers, bouquets bursting forth in wild abandon. Like our untraditional wedding garb, our outrageous, red tartan-clad best man and artistic, gypsy matron of honor, pretty, tame, traditional arrangements just wouldn’t suit, just not our style.
When we moved into our first home together, that tiny doll’s house of a home sandwiched in between two slightly grander constructions, squeezed in like a second thought, his sister came back and edged our handkerchief-sized lawn with plants, green and bright, and offered us 3 lovely, tiny rose bushes, beautiful, sweet-smelling roses that would burst into bloom in sunshine bright color every spring. Living in that miniature love nest brought us some of our happiest memories, learning to cook in that lovely white, bright kitchen, the French windows thrown open onto our beautiful garden where I could watch the flowers bloom; the walks to the market, coming home, basket brimming over with flowers, tulips, of course, and dahlias and carnations, whatever I chose, to place them lovingly in their vase in the center of my kitchen table to watch me as I cooked, and tiptoeing up that walk to our front door a few months later, another basket in hand filled with bouncing baby boy like a lovely blooming flower himself.
The flower is the poetry of reproduction.
It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life.
It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life.
- Jean Giraudoux
My first love was gardenias, plump, creamy, velvety gardenias, heady with the scent of something exotic and wild, their dark, thick clusters of leaves hinting of the jungle. We lived in a world rich with hibiscus, yellow, red, pink and orange with their colorful, fuzzy pistil bursting proudly from the center. Hibiscus, bright and gaudy, show-offs of the flower world, ostentatious like glittery showgirls, reminding me of old movie Island girls in this tropical climate, the breeze blowing through their hair, huge hibiscus tucked gaily behind one ear. But the gardenia stole my heart. Each morning as I left the house for the day, each afternoon as I arrived back home after school, those two gracious gardenia bushes edging our tiny front porch would greet me with their enveloping fragrance, would draw me towards their lush beauty. I would pause, breath in deeply and all my worries would disappear into the dreamlike quality of these unique, sensual flowers nestled amongst the jade green lushness, otherworldly in their sandy, brown surroundings, pushing back against the stifling hot steaminess of the Florida days.
Flowers are a regular part of our life; flowers filling terra cotta pots lining our Milan terrace, purple and red rhododendrons next to the rosemary and basil accompanied by two pots of gardenias, JP’s gift to me, flowers bought at the market, together, on a Sunday morning, wrapped in brown paper, flowers never forgotten on birthdays, Valentine’s Day, anniversaries. Cheery bouquets of tulips to brighten up a drab winter day, romantic bunches of peonies adding ardor and warmth to an occasion already brimming over with love, colorful bouquets of fuchsia and tiny carnation buds, sweetpea, amaryllis and freesia, surely signs of friendship, bringing life and joy into our everyday world.
Where flowers bloom, so does hope.
- Lady Bird Johnson
Chilled by this seemingly never-ending winter, bored and frustrated by steel gray skies, greeted every day by bare branches on the trees, bitten by icy winds, Deeba and I decided to look forward towards spring in choosing this month’s Mac Attack challenge theme. Our optimism won out, dreaming of warm breezes, fluffy white clouds skidding across bright blue skies, armfuls of colorful flowers, this month’s theme was Spring Fling: Creating Macarons Inspired by Spring Flowers. I looked across the table to a vase filled with glorious tulips and was truly inspired. Tulips, a whorl of colors in a dizzy dance of movement, tulips bright yellows and pinks intertwined, I used this challenge to test out a new procedure (thanks to Kim) of coloring and blending batches to create a swirl of color on my macs. Simple macarons, half almond meal, half hazelnut with a thick, rich mascarpone honey cream filling green like the stems of my lovely tulips, delicate in flavor like a light, warm spring breeze.
A special thanks to my new apprentice/assistant Mathilde who came and helped me make these macarons. She was extremely patient, sifting tons of ground nuts, listening to me jabber on about macarons, food blogging, my life, and stayed while I threw together the macaron batter a second time after the first batch failed miserably. But we learned a lot from this experience, understanding the dynamics behind food coloring, dry vs liquid, when to add it into the batter, and mastering the swirl effect. Thank you so much, Mathilde, and I can’t wait for you to come back for the next round!
And I didn’t even have any food in the house to offer her a decent lunch!
TULIP MACARONS with HONEY-PISTACHIO MASCARPONE CREAM FILLING
Yellow macaron batter :
100 g (3 ½ oz , 1 cup less about 2 Tbs) powdered/confectioner’s sugar
55 g (2 oz, 1/3 cup) ground almonds (I used half almonds, half hazelnuts)
15 gr (1 oz, 2 Tbs + ¼ tsp) granulated sugar
45 g (1.6 oz, about 1 ½ ) aged egg whites
1 tsp powdered yellow food coloring (all natural)
Pink macaron batter :
100 g (3 ½ oz , 1 cup less about 2 Tbs) powdered/confectioner’s sugar
55 g (2 oz, 1/3 cup) ground almonds (I used half almonds, half hazelnuts)
15 gr (1 oz, 2 Tbs + ¼ tsp) granulated sugar
45 g (1.6 oz, about 1 ½ ) aged egg whites
1 tsp all-natural powdered red food coloring
2-3 drops liquid red food coloring
Prepare 2 large baking sheets. On 2 large pieces of white paper the size of your baking sheets, trace 1 ½ inch-diameter circles (I used the wide end of my pastry tip) evenly spaced, leaving about ¾ - 1 inch between each circle. This will be your template to help you pipe even circles of batter onto the parchment paper. You will be able to reuse these endlessly. Place one paper on each baking sheet then cover with parchment paper. Set aside. Prepare a pastry bag with a plain tip (Ateco #807 or #809).
Sift the powdered sugar, the ground almonds and the powdered food coloring together into two separate mixing bowls, one for each recipe.
In a standing mixer or with a hand mixer, whip the egg whites, again, each measure of 45 grams in a separate bowl (preferably plastic of metal) for 30 seconds on low speed then increase speed to high and whip until the whites are foamy. Gradually add the granulated sugar as you are whipping the whites until you obtain a glossy meringue. Mine was just stiff.
Add a few drops of liquid red food coloring to one bowl of whites which will be folded into the dry ingredients in which you added the red powdered food coloring.
Gently but firmly, using a plastic or silicone spatula, fold about one bowl of whipped whites into each of the powdered sugar/ground almonds mixtures, being careful to fold the pink meringue into the bowl of dry ingredients in which you have added the red food coloring. Fold the whites into the dry, turning the bowl as you lift and fold, scraping up the dry hidden at the bottom, making sure you fold in all the dry ingredients completely. When the batter is ready to pipe, it should be flow from the spatula like lava or a thick ribbon. To test to see if you have folded it enough, drop a small amount onto a clean plate and jiggle it slightly. The top should flatten, not remain in a point. If it doesn’t flatten, give the batter a few more folds and test again, but do not overfold or the batter will be too runny.
You can also fold the powdered mixture into the meringue if it is easier for you.
Fill your prepared pastry bag with large dollops of the two batters, alternating blobs of yellow and pink batters without blending the two together. Pipe circles onto the parchment paper, using the traced circles on the template sheets to guide you, holding your pastry bag above each circle and piping into the center. You should have dollops of batter with swirls of the two colors. DO NOT FORGET TO CAREFULLY REMOVE THE WHITE PAPER TEMPLATE FROM UNDERNEATH THE PARCHMENT PAPER. YOU DO NOT WANT THIS TEMPLATE TO GO IN THE OVEN!
Preheat your oven to 280°F (140°C).
Allow the macarons to sit out for 30 minutes to an hour. The top of each shell should form a “skin” (it will feel like it hardened a bit when gently touched). Bake the shells for 15 – 20 minutes, depending on their size (when I touched macs that were not quite done, the top jiggled a bit as if there was still a bit of liquid batter between the top and the “feet” so I let it continue to bake another minute.) I turn the trays back to front halfway through the baking.
Remove the tray from the oven and immediately slide the parchment paper with the shells off of the hot baking sheet and onto a surface, table or countertop. Allow to cool before sliding the shells very gently off of the parchment by slipping a cake spatula under the shell as you lift it up. Be careful or the center of the shell risks sticking to the parchment.
Prepare your filling as your macaron shells cool.
HONEY-PISTACHIO MASCARPONE CREAM FILLING
300 g (10.5 oz) mascarpone cheese, preferably at room temperature
60 g (2 oz) orange-blossom honey (or your favorite liquid honey)
2 egg yolks
50 g (1.8 oz) finely ground pistachio nuts, or to taste
Beat the egg yolks together with the honey until well blended. Add the mascarpone and continue beating for a couple of minutes until light, fluffy and creamy. Fold in the ground pistachio nuts.
If the cream seems a bit too soft to pipe out and to sandwich between two shells, simply chill in the refrigerator until firm.
Finish your macarons :
Pair the macaron shells in shape and size. Pipe a dollop of Honey-Pistachio Mascarpone Cream onto the bottom shell of each pair and place the second shell on top.
cock
0 التعليقات:
إرسال تعليق