Salt and Vinegar... and Cheesecake?!

Hi all!

Hope those of you in Western Australia enjoyed the long weekend as much as I did!

On to business though. Last week I was asked to make some macarons which fit in with the theme of the AFL grand final and particularly one of the teams which would be playing: the Fremantle Dockers.

Now being a West Coast supporter I was naturally reluctant to make any desert glorifying our cross-town rivals, but in the end the food lover in me won out and I begrudgingly made two types of 'Docker' macarons : Salt and Vinegar and Cheesecake .

Salt and vinegar because salt and vinegar chips are a classic football food choice!
And Cheesecake flavoured... because I just wanted to!

Unless you have suffered a near-death experience at the hands of cream cheese, its hard to imagine anyone not liking the Cheesecake macaron! Its sweet but not overly, smooth, creamy... pretty much everything you want in a delicious snack!
The Salt and Vinegar flavour is a little more of an acquired taste, but please don't be scared off by it! The sweetness of the ganache tempers the tang of the balsamic and the unusual combinations sends your taste buds tripping! 

For anyone who doesn't know, the Dockers colours are purple and white and their logo is an anchor so I had to tie these two motifs into the decoration of the macarons. Simple enough right?

For the cheesecake macarons I baked the shells as plain white (unfortunately they did colour a little in the oven so weren't the perfect white I was after though...) and then used a paintbrush to paint on a rough stripe of purple food colouring (diluted in a drop of lemon juice). I also coloured the filling purple to match but this obviously isn't a necessity. 

For the salt and vinegar macarons I reserved about 2tbsp of the plain white macaron mix I had used for the first flavour and made up another batch coloured all purple. After piping out the macarons I used the reserved white mix to pipe little anchors on top and kept the filling as white as possible to add a little visual appeal. Because the original recipe I was using called for balsamic vinegar which would have coloured my filling an off-brown colour I instead used a white balsamic glaze which which gave me my lovely pure white filling, but you could just use plain balsamic if the colour isn't an issue for you!

For more info on decorating macaron shells I will be posting a detailed tutorial under the "Tips and Tutorials" page soon so keep and eye out!

Cheesecake Macarons

1 x quantity of macaron shells (see basic recipe here)
250g cream cheese, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tbsp whipping cream
1/3 cup icing sugar 


In an electric mixer beat the cream cheese, occasionally scraping down the sides of the bowl if necessary, until smooth.

Add the vanilla and icing sugar and beat until incorporated and then, with the mixer still running, slowly pour in the cream and beat on a low speed until the mixture is smooth and combined.

Refrigerate the cheesecake mix until it is set to a pipeable consistency and pipe onto your macaron shells and sandwich together. 

Salt and Vinegar Macarons

Recipe from Adriano Zumbo
 
1 x quantity of macaron shells (see basic recipe here)
75g whipping cream (between 30-36% fat)
125g white chocolate, chopped
30g white balsamic vinegar (or you can use normal balsamic)
1 tsp sea salt


Put the chocolate and cream in a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 30 second bursts, stirring well between each burst, until the chocolate is completely melted and the mixture is totally smooth and lump free. Set the mixture aside for 5 minutes to cool slightly.

Stir the balsamic vinegar into the white chocolate ganache and sprinkle in the salt a little at a time until it meets your taste.Refrigerate the mix until it is firm enough to pipe.

Spoon the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a wide nozzle and pipe onto the macaron shells. Sandwich the macaron shells together and voila!