Classic French: Macarons

I learned many things while baking these French treats. The first, and possibly most important, is that they are spelt ‘macaron,’ rather than ‘macaroon.’ They are, according to Wikipedia, different things. These are macarons.

I pinned this recipe months and months ago, but had really been putting off trying it – it looked fiddly, there was meringue, it involved piping – but the Classic French challenge spurred me on. This month’s challenge is the macaron.

Classic French is a baking challenge originated by Blue Kitchen Bakes. This month it is hosted by A Kick At The Pantry Door.

The original recipe by Felicity Cloake can be found here. I filled mine simply with whipped cream, because I wanted a colour contrast between the filling and shell.

I followed the instructions to the letter – I even opened the oven door half way through cooking time to let out the steam – and I thought they worked really well. I couldn’t tell you if it makes a difference to grind the almonds first, but Felicity thought so. The piping was much easier than I thought it would be – in fact, the hardest thing about macarons is keeping them in the fridge for 24 hours. I can confirm however, that it does make a difference.

Ingredients

• 65g ground almonds
• 85g icing sugar
• 25g cocoa powder
• 75g egg whites
• Pinch of salt
• 60g caster sugar
• 100ml whipping cream

Method

1. Line a baking sheet with parchment, preferably one with circles drawn onto the other side to aid your piping.
2. Put the almonds in a food processor or spice grinder and blitz for a couple of minutes to make them finer. Add the icing sugar and cocoa and repeat.
3. Sift the almond mixture into a bowl.
4. Whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt. When it is holding together, add the caster sugar. Continue to whisk until stiff.
5. Fold in the dry ingredients, and then beat the mixture vigorously until it’s of a consistency which falls off the spatula.
6. Spoon the mixture into the piping bag and carefully pipe on to the  using a 1cm nozzle. Pick the baking tray up and drop it on to the work surface a couple of times, then leave to rest for about 30 minutes until the macarons feel dry to the touch: they should not be sticky. Meanwhile, pre-heat the oven to 180C.
7. Bake the macarons for 17 minutes until firm, opening the oven door briefly a couple of times during cooking to let off any steam. Once you’re sure they’re cooked, slide the baking parchment off the tray immediately to stop the macarons cooking.
8. Cool completely on the paper, then carefully peel off: if they’re cooked, they should come away easily.
9. When cool, whip the cream. Match up equally-sized macarons, and then, using a small palette knife or spoon, sandwich them together with whipped cream. Refrigerate for 24 hours, then serve at room temperature.

Basic Brownies

I love brownies. For years, I’ve made Nigella’s Chocolate brownies from How to be a Domestic Goddess. But in these austere times, I’ve found the quantities and ingredients rather lavish, and, needless to say, expensive. 375g of best-quality chocolate could easily cost over £7.00, and that’s more than I really want to spend on home-made brownies.

So I’ve done a little bit of tweaking – well, quite a lot actually. So much so that the recipe below bears little resemblance to the original, except in the basic ingredients used. I’ve substituted cheaper alternatives, like margarine, but feel free to use butter. I now don’t feel quite so extravagant in making these. However, they are still expensive in terms of calories, so I probably shouldn’t make them that often.

Ingredients

• 200g margarine
• 100g dark chocolate (cooking quality is fine)
• 3 eggs
• 200g caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 175g self raising flour
• 25g cocoa powder
• Any additions – I added 100g of mini eggs for Easter.

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160C and line a brownie pan – mine is 20cm x 30cm.
2. In a large saucepan, melt together the margarine and chocolate. When it is melted, remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.
3. In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs and mix in the sugar and vanilla extract.
4. Beat the egg mixture into the chocolate mixture. Sift in the flour and cocoa powder and mix well.
5. Stir through any additions you want to add.
6. Pour into the brownie pan and bake for 18 minutes.
7. Leave in the tin to cool for at least 15 minutes before turning onto a wire rack. Allow to cool completely before cutting into small squares. I made 28 brownies from this mixture.

Book Review: French Children Don’t Throw Food

This book was published in January 2013, and its title echoes the previously popular ‘French Women Don’t Get Fat.’ The premise is the same: the way the French seem to do things is so much better than the way the British or Americans (generalised with the term ‘Anglophone’) do it.

The author, an American journalist, lived in Paris while her children were small, and observed how Parisian women raise their children. She then turned these observations into the book.

There’s actually a lot of sensible advice in this book. I particularly liked the chapters on food, on childcare and on sleep. The general premise of it is: be calm, observe, remember that you are in control, but also that you are teaching your child to become independent. I loved the sense of ‘let children be children;’ let them discover the world, rather than hovering about anxiously monitoring whether they have reached the expected milestone by the expected date.

The chapters on feeding and food were interesting. Some particularly sensible advice, which in hindsight supports my own experience, was along the lines of feed on demand for the first three months, then ease them into feeding every three hours. Then move onto 4 hours as you introduce solid foods and gradually decrease milk feeds. Now, that sounds so simple and obvious. But a health visitor will never say anything so obvious to you. And for a sleep-deprived, anxious, new-mother, obvious rationality doesn’t come easily.

Yes, it does acknowledge that many Parisian women don’t breastfeed for long, if at all (they are more interested in regaining their figures, it seems). But we all know the benefits of breastfeeding, and in my experience, most women would if they could successfully. I will keep my thoughts on breastfeeding for another post. And possibly another blog altogether.

Some of the cultural observations were interesting. Her observations from the planning meeting for a nursery menu were amazing – the chefs spent hours discussing the different vegetables on offer to the babies. One dish should not be repeated from one month to the next. This led to the very sensible advice that children should be encouraged to try everything, even if they don’t like it.

Another observation which made me laugh was the description of parents describing everything that their child does – to the child! “You’re climbing up the steps, up you go. Now you’re at the top. Are you going down the slide? There you go, down the slide, weeee!” I’ve seen something similar myself, and have to stop myself from doing it.

Personally, I think the French thing is a gimmick. There are plenty of wise and astute anglophone parents doing exactly the same thing. But at the moment, parenting advice either seems to be strict Gina Ford-esque rulebooks or the complete opposite: respond immediately to your baby’s every demand until they are at least 5 years old. Neither of these will lead to happy parents, or happy children. This book strikes a happy balance between the two. Love your children, nurture them, encourage them, but don’t smother them with your attention or let them rule the roost.

I got my copy from the local library; I probably would have purchased it if they didn’t have it, so it’s worth checking.

Sensory Play

We have an excellent local Sure Start centre. When Ben was 2-3 months old, we did a baby massage course there. At 6 months, we did a course called ‘Baby Moves,’ which was an introduction to sensory play. Now at 9 months, we’re just completing the ‘Little Explorers’ course, which extends the sensory play.

Part of the Sure Start agenda is to better equip parents to “give children the best start in life.” We live in one of the more deprived areas of the country, which may be the reason why the provision at the centre is so good. I certainly have benefitted from attending the courses, and I believe Benjamin has too.

One of the aims of the courses that we have done is about equipping parents with the skills and confidence to carry out sensory play at home. I particularly enjoyed the session on ‘Treasure Baskets,’ which gave me loads of ideas for alternatives to Ben’s usual toys. During that session, he loved banging together a metal dish and a wooden spoon – things that I found easily enough in our home but which I hadn’t thought of giving to him. Similarly, he loves playing with different textured fabrics, and will happily wriggle around with a couple of my scarves for entertainment. A real favourite was a piece of foil survival blanket (the kind you get after doing a marathon) – a really unusual texture for a baby to encounter.

Today’s session was completely different to anything he had experienced before. There were 4 big trays on the floor when we went in, and we had been advised to bring a change of clothes. In the first tray were porridge oats, sand in the second, shredded paper in the third and cornflakes in the fourth. Needless to say, Ben definitely preferred the cornflakes, and sat in the tray for ages, happily eating a second breakfast.

Photography isn’t allowed at the centre apart from the official photographs (we’ll receive photos of us and our children when we go to the last session next week), so I’ll illustrate sensory play with a lovely photo of Ben’s first time in a ball pool. This was taken a couple of months ago by my sister.

Mini Chocolate Sponges

These are an adaptation of Jo Wheatley’s Mini Victoria Sponges. I’ve made them a few times and guests have always been impressed – I think they do look fairly impressive on the stand, but they’re actually quite simple. I guess you could make cake pops from the leftover cake, but I never have.

Ingredients

• 225g caster sugar
• 225g margarine
• 200g self-raising flour
• 25g cocoa
• 4 eggs
• 250g icing sugar
• 65g margarine
• 1 tbsp milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Method 

1. Preheat the oven to 190C. Line one swiss roll tin with baking parchment.
2. Cream together the caster sugar with the margarine.
3. Beat in the eggs one at a time, alternating with spoonfuls of flour. Add the rest of the flour and cocoa powder (sifted).
4. Spread the mixture into the swiss roll tin and flatten with a palette knife as best as you can.
5. Bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes until cooked through.
6. Remove from oven and turn onto a wire rack. Leave to cool.
7. Put the icing sugar and margarine into a food processor. Blitz and add the milk and vanilla extract. Blitz again until smooth. Put into a piping bag.
8. When the cake is cool, transfer it to a board. Cut out 24 x 5cm circles from the cake.
9. Pipe the icing (I used a star nozzle) onto 12 cake circles. Top with the other 12.
10. Dust with icing sugar on top.

Weaning 3: Creating a balanced diet

Now that Ben is on 3 meals a day, including puddings, I felt that it would be helpful to do some meal planning for him. Not on a grand, day-by-day scale, but more to give me a sense of different things he could have for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Contrary to what most of the weaning books say, I’ve decided to only give Ben meat or fish once a day (most suggest twice, for lunch and dinner). I felt that this would give him much more balance, and I want him to grow up being prepared to eat a real variety, including vegetarian dishes. I also wanted to start including some dishes from different world cuisines, so I went hunting in my recipe books.

I try to include some finger foods at each meal time, and try to avoid this being toast all the time (he loves toast). I also didn’t want him to have a wheat or dairy overload each day, so I use these lists to help me to balance his diet. There doesn’t appear to be a link between wheat or dairy and his eczema, but I don’t think it’s good to be over-dependant on wheat or dairy-based food.

So, generally, this is what I’m working with. I’ll try to link to recipes where they are on the web, and will gradually post some of my own recipes as well.

Breakfasts

• Porridge
• Weetabix
• Fruit and rusk
• Eggy bread
• Scrambled eggs
• Pancakes
• Banana, cream cheese and jam sandwiches
• Fruity cous cous

Lunches

• Lovely lentils
• Vegetable tagine and cous cous
• Pasta with tomato sauce
• Pasta with vegetables and cheese sauce
• Scrambled eggs on toast
• Baked potato with beans or tuna and sweetcorn
• Cherub’s cous cous
• Rice and Dahl
• Risotto
• Bean and vegetable chilli
• Macaroni cheese
• Frittata
• Avocado and pitta breads
• Sweet potato wedges
• Carrot and lentil soup 
• Egg parcels
• Falafel

Dinners

• Beef stew
• Chicken casserole
• Pork and apple casserole
• Spaghetti bolognese
• Beginner’s beef ragout
• Poached salmon with carrots and peas
• Cod with spinach

The bedtime hour

Some days, 6pm is my favourite time of the day. Ben has had his tea, I’ve cleared up and Tim is just home from work. We’re usually all pretty tired, irrespective of whether we’ve had a disturbed night. But by 6pm, I can start to relax.

6pm marks the start of Ben’s bedtime routine; the end is almost in sight. When you’re looking after a small baby all day, the days can seem very very long. (My parenting mantra is that ‘the days are long but the years are short.’) Once you hit 6pm, you know you can get through.

One of the rituals that we have developed is to watch 10 minutes of CeeBeebies at 6pm. This marks the start of The Bedtime Hour, a lovely collection of programmes which are more subdued than some of the live-action content of earlier in the day. This is usually the only television that Ben watches, and he usually gets distracted and starts wriggling away when it is on, so I’m not too worried that it’s frying his brain.

The Bedtime Hour starts with a song: Good bye sun, hello moon. I admit, I love this song, probably more than Ben. Sometimes, the programmers shorten it or even leave it out all together, which incenses me. I like to sing along and show off that I know all the words. This is what becoming a mum does to you.

After the presenter (probably the bit that Ben loves the most), the first programme is Abney and Teal. Most parents will recognise Peppa Pig and Mr. Tumble, but Abney and Teal are the most gentle, kindest of cartoon characters. Living on an island in an inner-city park, with magical creatures who dig holes and blow bubbles, Abney and Teal are the best of friends. Abney prefers knitting, dusting and making porridge (a man after my own heart), while Teal loves a good adventure, and Toby Dog accompanies them all with a folksy tune on the accordion.

Occasionally ‘real-life’ infiltrates their world – a washed-up ladies handbag reveals a mobile phone, which is called ‘the buzzing thing,’ which keeps them all awake at night; a rock concert inspires Abney’s poetry. But most of the time, they eat porridge, grow cabbages and create things out of cardboard boxes. A slightly nostalgic look at childhood, perhaps.

Once Abney and Teal has finished, bedtime is all go: bath, bottle, songs, bed. At some point, we’ll introduce a Bible story and prayers, but I’m not sure when yet. Usually, that goes fairly smoothly, and it is a rare night when Ben isn’t snoring by 7.00pm.

That moment, as I’m sure all parents know, is a moment to treasure.