MACAROON EGGS IN SPUN CARAMEL NEST

Ever since Jai and Bee announced the "Click" event I HAVE had this stellar recipe spinning in my head, but it took me a long time to put everything together,reason being -I knew I needed an absolutely FREE day and loads of patience to pull this together. A long time back I had entered this recipe in a Cooking contest ,the theme of which was-"EGGS" and it had won the first prize.

                                               Macaroon eggs in spun caramel nest

The "Coconut macaroons "as most of you must be aware of comprises mainly egg white and the recipe here makes them just the way I LOVE them -crisp on the outside and coconutty softness on the inside, the "NEST" is made up of spun sugar much like the candy floss that all of us {kids and grown-ups alike}love so much.

Making the "NEST" is slightly tricky , if you have no experience handling caramel  temperatures, but if you have even little experience, it will be easy.

Ingredients-

(for 14 bite size macaroons)

• Egg white- 1
• Sugar- 4 tbsp.
• Flour- 1 tbsp.
• Baking powder- 1/4 tsp.
• Salt- a pinch
• Dry grated Coconut-4 tbsp.

for the caramel-

• Sugar -1/2 cup
• Water- 4 tbsp.

Method-

for macaroons-

Preheat oven to 180 deg. C.Take egg white in a CLEAN bowl, start beating , add salt , gradually add sugar , the egg white will start to thicken and resemble heavy cream -

        

           beating egg white and sugar

Tip in the rest of the ingredients and softly fold in with a large metal spoon. I am using mini muffin liners here so carefully put a small teaspoon into each liner, smoothing the top to make them resemble "eggs" :).Bake for 10-15 mins,cool.

                

                 the ready macaroons

For the "NEST"-

Now very carefully and with complete attention ,combine the sugar and water , place on stove, stir the mixture till sugar is completely dissolved, now bring to a rapid boil. Keep a small bowl filled with cold water ready, after few minutes of boiling the sugar syrup rapidly you will notice that it becomes very thick, and sticky and color changes to caramel brown, a drop of this syrup when dropped into the bowl of water should form into a firm ball, once it reaches this stage, remove and cool slightly.

         

caramel for spinning the nest

After 4-5 minutes , when syrup is sufficiently cooled, take a round steel bowl and working carefully, dip a wooden spatula in the syrup, when you pull it out it will leave silken threads- keep wrapping these threads around the bowl, till it is completely covered.

beginning of spinning the caramel around bowl

Upon cooling the nest slides off easily, add macaroon eggs and they are ready to serve.Enjoy the macaroons with a cup of Tea/coffee, my hubby crushed 4 macaroons, added a scoop of vanilla Ice cream , sprinkled the caramel on top ,and was in Heaven on Earth in 5 sec. flat, (acc. to him) !

 

                                       coconut macaroons in the spun sugar nest

(sorry for the large number of pics, but just could not help myself )!

The first picture is off to "incubate" at Jai and Bee's event, till the roundup-

  This recipe and post is singularly the one I have put all my love, time and attention into till date(read almost 6-7 hours, about 60 pics and making the caramel 4 times !) but I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT !!!

"LOvE AND hUGS To BOtH jAI AND BeE"AND BEST WISHES FOR A SUCCESSFUL EVENT

Technorati Tags: biscuits , macaroons , click event

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