LEVEL: Advanced
Callebaut Ruby Chocolate craze have died down pretty quickly after its first launch since 2 years ago. I had the privilege of being given the opportunity as the very first few lucky members in Australia from my previous job to experiment first-hand with the chocolate.
For those of you who are unaware of what Ruby chocolate is, it is at present the fourth type of chocolate standing alongside White Chocolate, Milk Chocolate and Dark Chocolate. Ruby chocolate comes in pretty ruby pink in colour and the ultimate mind blowing thing about this is the colour is all natural, stemming from the way the cacao bean is from its pod. Callebaut has spent more than a decade to find a technology to turn this ruby cacao bean to bar without compromising its natural colour. To top that off, ruby chocolate also has a natural fruitiness to it which totally compliment its appearance.
Not wanting to be a critique here on pastry products, I know a lot of people have turn away from ruby chocolate because of the way the chocolate do not retain its natural colour for very long and do have a tendency of turning brown over a long period of time. Not to mention, if you want to make a ruby chocolate mousse, it is almost impossible to retain the bright pink colour without the cream diluting it away. From experience, Ruby chocolate is also fairly hard to work with. Its high viscosity level makes ruby chocolate quite hard to make moulded chocolate bonbons with.
Although with its challenges, there are many great things I Love about Ruby chocolate. Apart for its all natural colour and flavour, the top of my list of things to do with Ruby chocolate is making berry ganache with it. With the intense berry colour already present, adding it to ruby chocolate to make a ganache not only further enhance the appearance, but the flavour as well! In saying that, ruby chocolate is also a great compliment for berry fruit base mousses without having to worry too much about the changes in its natural colour.
If you have intention of using the chocolate for moulded bonbons, simply add in pre-crystallised cocoa butter to bring it to desired fluidity. I usually go for 1% of cocoa butter for the amount of chocolate as too much cocoa butter can cause the chocolate to be really unstable and thickens very quickly.
A friend of mind gifted me the lychee soju not realizing I am not much of a drinker. I have been keeping this soju wanting to bring it to good use in some of my desserts and this macaron is one of them.
RECIPE
Note : Ganache and Soju Gel needs to be made and rested over night.
YIELD: 30- 35 pairs of Medium Size Macarons
Macaron
Tant Pour Tant (TPT) 400g
Egg Whites (1) 70 g
Castor Sugar 200 g
Water 70 g
Egg Whites (2) 70 g
Cream of tartar 2 g
Raspberry Ruby Ganache
Full cream 35% 50g
Raspberry Puree 150g
Glucose 20 g
Ruby Chocolate 200g
Cocoa Butter 25 g
Lychee Soju Gel
Lychee Puree 160g
Castor Sugar 90g
Yellow Pectin 5g
Lychee Soju 25 g
*To make Tpt
Mix equal parts of almond meal with icing sugar. For the case of this recipe, you will need 200g almond meal and 200 g icing sugar. Place the two ingredients into a food processor and blend for 10 seconds or until there are no chunks of icing sugar.
Do not blend for too long or the natural oil will start to release from the nut meal and create a greasy macaron.
Pass the tpt mixture over a fine sieve 2 to 3 times and remove any large chunks of nuts that did not pass through the sieve.
Method
For the Macaron
1. Place TPT in a clean bowl and mix with egg whites until it forms into a paste, ensuring that there are no dry bits in the mix. Place a cling film over the almond paste to avoid it from drying out and set aside until ready to use.
Note: if the almond paste dries out too much it can cause the macaron to crack when being baked in the oven.
2. In a clean pot, place water and castor sugar and mix well. Ensure that there is no sugar granules on the side of the pot. Place the pot over the heat and bring to a boil until it reaches 115ºC, take it off the pot, it will continue cooking. We want the sugar syrup to reach 117ºC.
Note: If you have granules of sugar on the side of the pot, using a really clean brush dipped in water, brush off the sugar at the early stage before the syrup starts to boil.
You want the sugar syrup to cook to a soft ball stage at 117ºC. As the sugar will keep cooking when you remove the pot from the heat, it is best to turn off heat at a slightly earlier stage to avoid overcooking the sugar syrup.
3. Meanwhile, place egg whites (2) in a stand mixer bowl attached with a whisk. When the sugar syrup reaches 110ºC , start whisking on medium speed until the egg whites becomes foamy and there is no sign of watery egg whites.
When the meringue reaches the desired temperature, turn the mixer in to the lowest speed and slowly stream in the sugar syrup into the egg whites. Make sure that you avoid the sugar from hitting the whisk so that they do not splatter and set on to the sides of the bowl.
4. Keep whisking the meringue and when it reaches soft peak, add in the gel colour and continue whisking until it reaches stiff peak.
5. Place 1/3 of the meringue in to the almond paste and mix until the paste softened and are well incorporated and there are no dry bits.
6. Then mix in the rest of the meringue with a spatula and keep mixing until when you drop some of the macaronage with your spatula on top of the rest of the mix, it starts to very slowly flows flat together with the rest of the macaronage.
I call it s 5 seconds flow test. When you drop some macaronage on the surface of the mix and counts to 5, the mix should gradually start slowly flowing flat in the bowl by then.
If the mix is not flowing at all, you need to mix a little more. Try not to over mix. If the mix is too runny, your macaron will not produce a feet when baked. If under mix, the macaron will not be smooth and have a tendency of cracking.
7. Transfer the macaron mix in to a piping pastry bag fitted with a 5 mm round tip nozzle, pipe individual and uniform discs on to a parchment paper.
Leave the macaron to dry out. If you can tough the surface of the macaron without it sticking to your hands, it is ready to bake.
8. bake at a pre-heated oven at 140ºC placing the tray at the lowest deck part of the oven and bake for roughly around 12 to 15 minutes.
Note: every oven is different so it is advisable that if you are doing this for the first time, that you start with a low temperature first and if you are not getting too much kick to produce the feet in your macaron, you can turn the oven up a notch. 140ºC seems to be a perfect temperature for most home oven that I have tested. In this recipe, I use a Miele oven set at Conventional heating.
Raspberry Ruby Ganache
Place cream, puree and glucose into a pot and bring to a mere simmer (around 75°C to 80°C).
Pour over the ruby chocolate and cocoa butter and let sit for 1 or 2 minutes. When the ganache reaches 35°C to 40°C, stick blend the ganache until smooth. Transfer into a bowl, cling wrap touching the surface of the ganache and let it crystallise and firm up overnight.
Transfer into a piping bag fitted with a plain pastry tip and set aside until ready to use.
Lychee Soju Gel
1. Place lychee puree into a pot and bring to a mere boil.
2. Meanwhile, mix sugar and pectin together. When puree starts to boil, gradually sprinkle in the pectin mix while whisking. Keep whisking over medium heat for 2 minutes. The liquid will start to reduce and thickens slightly. If you are unsure when to stop boiling, as soon as it reaches 103°C.
3. Transfer the gel in to a jug, cover with cling film touching the surface and leave to set overnight.
4. The next day, the gel will start to firm up. Stick blend the gel with a stick blender until smooth. Transfer in to a pastry piping bag and set aside until ready to use.
