It’s Family Day here in Ontario today and I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than to throw a virtual baby shower for my dear friend Jan from Family Bites. I’ve known Jan for a number of years now – I think she’s my oldest “in real life” blog friend – and she’s part of my monthly Cookbook Book Club (along with Jenn from Chocolate Shavings).
A couple of weeks ago, a few friends and I got together to surprise Jan with a baby shower brunch, where we cooked dishes from her new cookbook, Gatherings, (go buy the book on Amazon or Amazon Canada, or for free worldwide shipping, buy from The Book Depository!) but there were so many other people who wanted to celebrate the imminent arrival of Jan’s third child that we decided to throw a virtual shower!
Jan and her husband Rob are welcoming a son to their family in the next couple of weeks so I couldn’t go past something BLUE!
And since I know Jan (and her boys) are fans of macarons, I couldn’t think of a better dish to bring to a baby boy baby shower than blueberry “cheesecake “macarons! I’ve been experimenting a lot recently with the recipe I learned at a class with Kathryn Gordon, co-author of Les Petits Macarons, at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York. Her method is dramatically different from my tried and true macaron recipe – the quantities of ingredients are completely different (she uses equal quantity of almond meal to icing sugar whereas my recipe uses double the icing sugar to almond flour) and instead of “drying” (resting) the macarons at room temperature for 30ish minutes, she does this in a very low oven for 15 minutes. I’ve experimented quite a lot with this recipe (read about some of my trials here) and have come up with some variations that work for me in terms of timing and temperature.
This time around, I experimented with different tray types and silpat versus parchment. Suffice to say, it’s still a work in progress but I managed to bake this beautiful blue batch that I think would take pride of place on any baby shower table!
The shells are flavoured with a little bit of freeze-dried blueberry powder from Nuts.com and coloured with what had come to be known as “Smurf Blue” – warning – some powdered food colourings will stain your teeth and tongue but hey, that makes for an even more fun party, right?! The filling is a generous smoodge of cream cheese frosting making this a one-bite chewy, cheesecake-y treat that are so small you can for sure have more than one!
But hey, one cannot live on macarons alone so here’s what Jan’s friends have brought to the table for the virtual shower for #BabyFamilyBites:
Mardi from eat. live. travel. write made blueberry cheesecake macarons
Julie from Dinner with Julie made Meyer lemon scones
Heather from The Tasty Gardener made Cream Puffs with Caramel Cream and Chocolate Pretzel Top
Isabelle from Crumb: A Food Blog made Blackberry Meringue Bars
Jennifer from Seasons and Suppers made Baby Blueberry Beignets
Christina from Strawberries For Supper made Chocolate Madeleines
Aimée from Simple Bites made Roasted Turnip Hummus
Jenny from The Brunette Baker made Wild Blueberry Buttermilk Muffins
Liliana from My Cookbook Addiction made mini-cupcakes
Carole from The Yum Yum Factor made Beet and Blue Cheese Canapes
Charmian from The Messy Baker made Piglet Muffins
Amy from Family Feedbag made Marmalade Poke Cake
Brittany from My Daily Randomness made Caramel + Pumpkin Parfait
Meg from Sweet Twist of Blogging made Apple Carrot Loaf
Louisa from Living Lou made Maple Walnut Cookies
Libby from Libby Roach Photography made Butter Baked Good’s Peanut Butter Sandwich cookie
Robyn from Planet Byn made Milk & Cookies Shooters
Congrats Jan – we cannot WAIT to meet the newest addition to the Family Bites family soon!
XO
Canadians – win a copy of Brown Eggs and Jam Jars! Closes Wednesday February 18th 6pm EST. Details here.
Please note: The product links from Nuts.Com, Amazon, Amazon.ca and The Book Depository are affiliate links, meaning if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price which goes towards maintaining eat. live. travel. write. Thank you in advance!
The ‘smurf blue’ colour is perfect and a blue mouth would be totally worth eating a couple of these since they sound delicious!
Blue mouths all round!
Smurf Blue? That’s an amazing colour. And from freeze-dried blueberry powder? I just learned something new! Thanks for organizing this virtual shower!
No, the colour is from food colouring!
Shout out to you Mardi for coordinating this amazing Virtual Baby Shower! Always so fun. Your macarons look beautiful, as always!
You are welcome and thank you!
I can’t even tell you how happy that Smurf blue makes me. I’d be willing to risk embarrassment at this baby shower in order to eat more than my fair share of these macarons. Sorry, gals, you snooze you lose!
PS – I’m adding the word ‘smoodge’ to my vocabulary.
It’s good, right – smoodge!?
So pretty. I love how vibrant these are.
Thanks Meg!
Love the colour on these, Mardi! Smurf blue doesn’t even begin to do it justice. 🙂 (Or should that be schtroumpf blue, seeing as they are French macarons and all?)
I’m a sucker for blueberry-flavoured anything, so I’d be more than willing to risk a blue mouth to enjoy a couple of these bad boys.
Schtroumpfs for the win!!!
The colour of these macarons! Stunning 🙂 Love the addition of blueberry powder to the shells and combined with the cream cheese icing, they must be absolutely delicious.
A tasty bite, indeed!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for organizing this! What a wonderful surprise to wake up to. I finally have the time to go through and read each post and I’m so overwhelmed by the kindness. I absolutely adore these treats. The colour is pure perfection and the blueberry powder blows my mind. So inventive. I would absolutely eat these, blue mouth and all. xoxox
Jan you are so welcome 🙂 Good luck with the arrival of little one!
These are gorgeous, Mardi! Can’t get over that brilliant colour. Thanks so much for organizing all of this! xo!
So welcome! And yes, the colour is spectacular!
What a fun idea, everyone!
Those Smurfarons tasted mighty fine…and the batch that made it to “bake night” at curling had teeth the colour of our stones! 😉
Totally on purpose, right? 😉
You are a master of the macarons! In blue they are poppy and fun. Great pick!
Thanks Libby!
Thanks again Mardi for organizing this hop! These blue macarons are brilliant!
Aw thanks Britt!
I love the Smurf Blue colour macarons! They must taste amazing with the cream cheese filling. I sure would wouldn’t mind staining a few teeth to eat some.
They look perfect!
Thanks Liliana!