Lychee Mascarpone & Emperor's Seven Treasures Macarons

This is a first for me on two levels. I have been encouraged by heavenwildfleur to join the Mactweets challenge for a while now, and yes, after making macarons a few times now, I am happy to say that I’m finally onboard with the folks at Mactweets! For this attempt, I’ve also used a new way of incorporating flavours into my macarons…with tea-infused jelly! As you can see, this is all very exciting for me!

This month’s Macattack Challenge 12 is PINK, and mind you, this is no ordinary pink. It’s PINK, representing the pink ribbons for the Breast Cancer Awareness month of October. I am very glad to be partaking in this on my first Mactweets challenge, as breast cancer is a debilitating disease that has struck close to home when one of my loved ones was diagnosed with it a few years ago. So most of all, whilst it is exciting to be caught up in the macarons buzz, this challenge is very meaningful to me. If you’re able to, please do spread the word and take part in the campaign for raising awareness on breast cancer. Thank you.

As I’ve mentioned, I am trying out a new way of incorporating flavours to my macarons. This is not a novel method, but it certainly is in my kitchen and thank goodness, it worked! My friends loved the macarons, even more so when they knew that these were made for a good cause.

I have always loved the Ispahan, a lychee-based rose pastry, and so for this challenge, I decided to make some lychee mascarpone macarons. I wanted to give another dimension to the sweetness of lychees, and to achieve this, I made some jelly infused with one of my favourite teas, Emperor’s Seven Treasures, which is a blend of different green and black tea leaves with fruity peach-like nuances. I thought this was a really delicious combination; the floral and fruity fragrance of the tea-infused jelly complimented the sweetness of lychees and white chocolate mascarpone very well! The watery and soft nature of jelly also cuts the thickness of the lychee white chocolate and mascarpone cream I made, and when eaten on the day after they were made, the cream and jelly came together as a wonderfully light filling with different textures to delight the palette.

Here are the recipes for the shell and filling.

For the macaron shells:
(adapted from heavenwildfleur)

100g egg white, aged
3g egg white powder
90g caster sugar
140g almond flour
160g icing sugar
1/2-1 teaspoon red food colouring

1. Preheat oven at 170 degrees Celsius.

2. Sift almond flour and icing sugar together in a bowl.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk egg whites and egg white powder till soft peaks are formed. Whisk in caster sugar until stiff peaks form.

4. To the egg white mixture, fold in dry ingredients from Step 2 in 1/3 portions to combine. Add colouring, then fold in the mixture more vigorously. Test the consistency from time to time by lifting a generous dollop of macaron paste and dropping it into the mixing bowl. If the macaron paste does not settle smoothly after 30 seconds, continue folding the paste. If the macaron paste smooths out too quickly, you’ve gone too far.

5. Pipe out the shells onto a baking sheet lined with parchment and leave them to rest for 25 minutes before baking.

6. When a crust is formed, turn temperature on oven down to 140 degrees Celsius and bake for 15 minutes, turning the tray halfway through baking.

7. Cool parchment of baked shells on cooling rack. Unmould when the shells are completely cool.

For the Lychee White Chocolate Mascarpone Cream:

120g white chocolate
20g unsalted butter
150g mascarpone, room temperature
150g lychees

1. Melt white chocolate and butter and leave to cool.

2. Blitz lychees in food processor, remove the juice by pressing purée through a sieve. Retain 6 tablespoonsful of the lychee juice, and also retain all of the pulp.

3. Whisk mascarpone till loosened, and beat in white chocolate mixture till combined.

4. Add the lychee pulp and 3 tablespoons of lychee juice, beat till combined.

For the Emperor’s Seven Treasures Tea-infused Jelly:

1/2 tablespoon Emperor’s Seven Treasures tea leaves
120ml boiling water
3 tablespoons lychee juice (from above)
1 tablespoon gelatin (depends on the instructions on the packet and how hard you want the jelly to be)

1. Steep tea leaves in boiling water and lychee juice for 10 minutes. Filter.

2. Add gelatin to filtered tea and refrigerate to set.

3. Once jelly is set, cut jelly into small cubes.

Assembling macarons:

1. Spoon lychee mascarpone cream onto one shell.

2. Add 2-3 cubes of tea-infused jelly on top of the cream.

3. Sandwich, and you’re done!

There you go, my PINKarons for PINKtober and my first Mactweets challenge! Hope you enjoy making these and let me know what you think of the recipe!

If you love macarons, join me on my macaron journey. But if you adore lychees, you might like my Lychee Chiffon Cake with Matcha Whipped Cream Frosting. Also check out my Lychees, Rose and Raspberries Entremet here – The Ispahan Cake!

Check out what I have been baking in my own kitchen.

Also check out my other food adventures.

*Updated: This post is featured on Foodgawker, Tastespotting and Photograzing. Check out my profiles on Photograzing, Foodgawker and  Tastespotting to see my other featured posts!

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