Pinkarons for Pinktober: Macaron Baking Party with Tweeps

One of my favorite things to do every month is to work on my post for the baking group MacTweets. I love baking (and eating!) macarons. The theme for this month was Pinkarons for Pinktober. So before the month ends remind all your female friends to do a breast self exam. You can even sign up and create a plan that sends you reminders via text.

As I was thinking of what macaron flavor to bake for this month’s MacTweets challenge, Olga from Mango & Tomato mentioned that she had tried making macarons for a daring bakers challenge and unfortunately she did not get feet. This is the most dreaded letdown for macaron bakers. I know, because I’ve been there many times. I asked Olga if she’d like to get together for a mac bake date. Before I knew it we had organized a macaron baking party hosted by the fabulous Laetitia of French Twist DC. We were also joined by other fun tweeps: Julia, Valerie, and Mariya. It still amazes me how many wonderful people I’ve met through Twitter. It is a great platform to meet and get together with people who share your interests.

After much discussion, we settled on flavors for the fillings: rose lychee, lemon, and dark chocolate. We made pink shells in honor of breast cancer awareness month, and also peach colored ones.

This was so much more fun than a class that you would take at a professional kitchen. We had a chance to chat, get to know each other, snack on yummy treats (cheeses, guacamole, lemon cake, and ispahan cupcakes), and sip pink grapefruit mimosas without having to rush through the recipes.

At first I was a bit worried about making macs in someone else’s kitchen, but it really was a breeze. Still, when I peeked at our first batch of macarons in the oven and saw feet I let out a little scream and did a happy dance.

Mariya Piping Macaron Shells

Great Work!

Macs (With Feet!) Fresh Out of the Oven

I think everyone came out with a good idea of how to make macarons. It was clear that they had the most fun piping the fillings on the shells. After all the hard work, piping the filling was a piece of cake!

Mariya, Olga, and Julia Piping Filling on the Shells

I don’t have a lot of pictures since we were working hard on making macs! But I’ve included a few courtesy of Laetitia and Olga.

I’m looking forward to doing more macaron baking parties. Contact me via twitter if you are interested.

The full recipe for shells is here.

Recipes for Fillings:

Rose Lychee Filling
8 oz white chocolate
1 to 2 oz heavy cream
4 oz lychee puree (about 8 lychees drained and pureed)
½ teaspoon rose extract
1. Melt chocolate over a double boiler
2. In a small saucepan, bring heavy cream and lychee puree to a boil. Pour in two additions over the white chocolate. Whisk until well incorporated. Add in the rose extract.
3. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Lemon Filling
8 oz white chocolate
3 ounces heavy cream
4 oz lemon curd
1. In a small saucepan, bring heavy cream to a boil.
2. Melt chocolate over a double boiler.
3. Pour cream in two additions over the white chocolate. Whisk until well incorporated.
4. Whisk in .lemon curd.
5. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Chocolate Filling
4 oz chocolate
3 oz heavy cream
1 teaspoon butter, at room temperature
1. Bring heavy cream to a boil.
2. Pour cream in two additions over the chocolate. Whisk until well incorporated. Add butter, whisk well.
3. Refrigerate until ready to use.