Lavender & Red Wine Macarons

GET

Almond Meal / Powdered Almonds - 65 gms
Icing Sugar - 80 gms
Lavender 5 gms
Sugar - 40 gms

Egg White - 50 gms


For the Ganache:
1 3/4 cups red wine
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
55 grams dry pectin
2 1/4 cups sugar

SET

• Heat the oven to 160°C. Line the baking tray with parchment paper.
• Blend the almond meal, lavender and icing sugar in a processesor, making sure the mixture is well blended and fine. Then pass this mixture through a fine sieve, making sure that there are no lumps left. 
• For the egg whites: make sure the bowl you use is extremely clean. The egg whites should be at room temperature, before you start beating, add a few drops of lemon juice or a pinch of salt. Beat on a medium speed, and slowly add the sugar spoon by spoon. Increase the speed after a minute, beating on high speed for 4 minutes or untill strong peaks have formed. Make sure that the eggs hold firm peaks, like a bird's beak!
  
• Sprinkly the dry mixture spoon by spoon over the egg whies. Blend this mixture very slowly with a spatula, just bend and not beat, else the whites will flop over. 
• While mixing you should be gentle making sure not to overmix, as you'd rather have an undermixed batter than a cakey overmixed batter. Normally, I turn the spatula in 30-40 circular motions depending on the quantity. 
• The best way to know whether the batter is ready, is to look for these signs:
• When you started off, the batter was firm and was holding its shape. After mixing for subsquent minutes, when you lift the batter it should fall in ribbons, should be shiny and satiny. 
• You should not be able to see any of the egg white.
  
• Fill in this mixture in a piping bag and use a 8-10 mm round tip. Pipe blobs of batter on the circled baking sheet, make sure you are holding the piping back perpendicular to the sheet. Pipe in just about enough to cover the circles you made, or if you were lazy, pipe the size of macaron you would want remember that the batter usually spreads about 1 cm.
  
• Leave the piped batter in a dry warm place for minimum 20 minutes so as to develop a thin cover. 
• In the oven, place the tray in the middle, keep another tray below the with the macaron tray. 

• Within 5 minutes the feet will start forming, and at the 7th or 8th minute if the macarons start to brown unevenly, rotate the baking tray. Bake for another 3-4 minutes, however, another trick to check if they are done, is to softly push the macaron, if the feet move a bit. The total time should be 10-11 minutes at 150-160°C
  
• Remove the tray from the oven, take off the baking sheet and place on a wet surface for a couple of seconds so as to stop the baking process. You can do so by placing the baking sheet on a wet piece of cloth flattened out. 
• After a couple of minutes, peel the macaron off the sheet and place them upside down on a wire rack. If they do not peel or come off easily, pop them back into the oven for a couple of minutes.

For the Red Wine Jam (Compote)


Combine the wine, pectin and lemon juice in a large pan. Bring to boil, stir frequently, add sugar and stir untill dissolved. Boil for for 2-3 minutes on high flame stirring constantly. Take off the flame, cool the pan. Cool untill ready to use.

GO
To finish the assembly of the macaron:

• Smear small portions of the jam on the underside of each macaron and stick two undersides together. 
• Cool the prepared macarons for 24 hours at least, as they taste better..