Fall Flavor Macarons! (With a recipe for Italian Meringue)

I LOVE Autumn. It is my favorite season, with Winter being a close second. There's just something about cold weather that makes me feel so snuggly and happy. I love everything about it, the colors, the fashion, the food, the hot drinks. And Halloween! Nothing gets me in the mood for fall like the movie Hocus Pocus! So this weekend I got into the fall spirit and put together a couple of new macaron flavors to celebrate the season!

Pumpkin Spice and Apple Spice! I know everyone goes ga-ga over pumpkin when September rolls around (thank you for the Pumpkin Spice latte, Starbucks), but I don't want to forget the amazing apple! I love apples, apple cider, and APPLE BUTTER! Delicious! These flavors of macarons are now available for purchase in my Etsy Shop!

When coming up for the fillings for my various macarons, I often use Italian Meringue (sometimes called Italian Buttercream, but there is no butter in this recipe). For both of these new flavors, I mixed in Italian meringue to give it texture and sweetness.

I find that this recipe is fairly simple, and makes a cream/meringue that you will not be able to stop sampling. I think I went through at least five spoons in the process of making my last batch because I couldn't stop taking taster bites.

Ingredients
8 oz sugar
2 oz water
4 oz egg whites

Directions
Heat the sugar and water mixture, make sure you brush the pan with water to make sure there are no dry sugar crystals. When the syrup reaches 220, start beating your egg whites. Once the syrup reaches 240, your egg whites should be at stiff peak stage. CAREFULLY pour the syrup into the egg whites, as they are still beating. I can not stress enough how careful you need to be with this syrup. It is lava! Pour all of the syrup in and keep beating until the mixing bowl reaches room temperature. I'd guess this takes about eight minutes, but I'm terrible at time estimation (I know, terrible affliction for a baker, but that's why I use my trusty phone timer when things are in the oven), so just mix until the bowl is room temp and you're good.

The finished product is going to be thick and glossy and delicious and amazing and addicting. And and and. You can use it to frost a cake, make meringue cookies, top a pie, or make macaron fillings!

Image from Classy Catering Creations because I fail at remembering to take pictures

If your meringue starts to separate after a couple of days, just throw it back into the mixing bowl and mix it until it becomes fluffy again. All good!

Happy Autumn, everyone!

Salted Caramels - ooOOOOOoooh!

First off, let me start by saying I've never been a huge caramel fan. It's usually over-the-top sweet for me and hurts my teeth. Yet everyone calls me crazy for not liking it. I want to like it, I really do. It LOOKS really great. Especially when people put salt on it. I'm a huge sucker for the salty/sweet combo. So when I ran across this recipe at Flour it Devour it, I thought it might be time for me to attempt caramels. I like that the recipe does not use corn syrup, but rather honey. I LOVE love honey, and thought the flavor would really lend itself to caramel. Also, there's vanilla. Double yum. So I went about trying out this recipe, with just very slight modifications.

Thank you instagram for making my crappy photography look any kind of acceptable. Hopefully.

Salted Caramels

1 &1/2 cups vanilla sugar
1/2 cup raw honey
1/2 vanilla bean
1/2 cup salted butter, chopped into small cubes
1 cup heavy cream
Sea salt for sprinkling

So I started with raw honey and organic cane sugar. I used vanilla sugar that I made (it's easy, just chop up some vanilla bean, scrape it into the sugar, then throw it all into an air-tight canister, scraped out beans included, and the flavor infuses into the sugar. SUPER good). Pour the honey over the sugar and let it melt on a medium to low-ish heat. I also scraped an extra half of a vanilla bean into the mix, because hey, I love vanilla. Do not stir the sugar! Stirring may cause it to crystallize. If you need to do something because you just can't stand it, swirl around the pan a little, but please refrain from stirring. I know it's difficult.

While the sugar is melting in the honey, heat up the cream, bringing it to a simmer.

When the sugar is melted, and it's a beautiful golden brown color, add in the pieces of butter and whisk until it's all melted in and smooth. 

Once the mixture is smooth, slowly add in the heated cream and whisk together. The mixture will foam up a lot, so be careful. Let the mixture cook until it reaches 248°F. 

When the caramel reaches 248°F, pour it into a pan that has been lined with parchment paper. I used a 13x9 quarter sheet pan. Once it's cooled a bit (10-15 minutes), sprinkle the sea salt over the pan. 

After the caramel has cooled to stiffness, cut it into whatever size or shapes you like. I cut mine into pieces about an inch and a half long, and half an inch wide, then wrapped them in parchment paper. Viola! Delicious, creamy caramels with tones of honey and vanilla and a hint of salt. YUM!