Heart shape and Hello Kitty / Teddy bear shape macarons have always been awkward to make. If you have ever tried piping them, you'll know that the shape often distorts in baking. It's very very hard to achieve identical size and shaped macarons to pair up together. Making fancy shape macarons normally results in a few decent ones and a load you want to pretend someone else made !
This mat works in exactly the same way as our very popular original Revolutionary Double Sided Macaron Mat (that one has two sizes of circular cells). You can find many recipes using our macaron mats on this blog. The important thing is that timing when baking on these mats differ. I like to bake at 150deg C fan with the door open for 5 mins, and then a further 18 > 20 mins with the door shut. I don't bother leaving them out to wait for a skin to form - that happens anyway when you bake for 5 mins with the door open and saves a lot of hanging around.
This macaron mat has 16 cells on each side, each 60mm wide, with plenty of air space / gap around each macaron. Each mat is 300mm x 300mm / 12" square and fits on a standard baking tray. We also make this mat in a 600 x 300mm commercial size.
Simply pipe you mix to fill the inner line, and as it relaxes, it should spread to the outer line. Use a teaspoon handle or similar to coax the mixture into the ears and point / bulbs of the heart if required.
I find it best to pipe one tray load at a time with the hearts / kittys so I can coax the mix into the tighter areas before it starts to skin.
After piping, place two heart shaped sprinkles on tip to tip just below the ear to create a bow for Kitty. The face markings are drawn on using an edible marker after baking.
To make enough mix to bake two trays of macarons and a few extra, use 1/2 my standard recipe in the YOUTUBE tutorial.
Those macarons are fab! xx
ReplyDeleteThe kitties are beyond cute, my nieces would go crazy for them. I did try piping some free hand before and my results weren't that good. Brilliant way to get them even.
ReplyDelete-Gina-
These look very cute and I love the colour too!
ReplyDeletelove hello kitty! and macaroons.. perfect! :D xxx
ReplyDeleteI so loved this when I saw it the other day that I had to order your macaron mat (and ended up ordering a few other things as well!). Just wanted to let you know that it turned up safely and I can't wait to give it a try. Just hope mine turn out as nicely as yours. Just wondered as well if you used sprinkle for the bow and nose on the Hello Kitty macs? They look great! :)
ReplyDeletethank you everyone
ReplyDeleteSusie - the bow is made from two heart shape sprinkles - put on before baking.
The eyes, nose and whiskers were drawn on with edible pens.
I'm hoping to do a youtube turorial for these too - but I'm waiting on the electrician coming to wire up my new oven at work.