Happy Bastille Day!

It's Bastille Day! The French call it  La Fête Nationale, and it's as big a celebration in France as Independence Day is in the United States. So, how better to celebrate the day than to go back to my French culinary school roots for inspiration.

My friends know that, long before I considered becoming a professional chef, I loved to bake, especially desserts. When I did decide to go to culinary school, I seriously considered focusing on pastry, but ultimately decided that I didn't want to specialize too early in my career, so I opted to go for the broader culinary program my school offered. It had a savory focus, but desserts and pastry techniques were a major part of the curriculum.

One of my favorite French pastry elements is frangipane. Frangipane is an almond filling that is used for tarts, croissants, and other pastries. It's so yummy and so easy to make. The first recipe I made in culinary school using frangipane was a pear tart. I can still remember that tart, the flavor of the almonds with the pears was lovely.

Pears aren't really in season right now, it's a bit early to get good ones, but peaches are coming in to their own. Peaches are one of my favorite summer fruits, I love eating them raw as well as cooking with them. So this week's recipe is inspired by Bastille Day and combines two of my favorite things, peaches and frangipane. Enjoy!

Peach and Frangipane Tart

Makes 1, 9 to 10 inch tart

For the tart crust:

1 ¼ cups all purpose flour

2 tablespoons sugar

pinch of kosher salt

4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold and cut into tablespoon-sized pieces

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the frangipane:

4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

¼ cup sugar

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons almond flour

zest of 1 lemon

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon almond liqueur, dark rum, or brandy

3 to 4 large peaches, pits removed and sliced very thin

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

To make the tart crust: place the flour, sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the dry ingredients are mixed. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture looks like damp sand with pebbles mixed through. Add the egg and vanilla extract to the food processor bowl, and pulse until the dough comes together into shaggy clumps. Remove the dough from the food processor and gently knead to bring it together into a cohesive mass. (Don't work the dough too much, you're just kneading it enough to bring it together.)

Take the dough and press it into the bottom of a 9 or 10 inch tart pan with a removeable bottom. Flatten the dough across the bottom of the pan and up the sides. Place the pan in the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes. Once the dough is well chilled, line the bottom of the shell with foil or parchment paper, then fill the shell with rice, dry beans, or pie weights. (Weighing down the crust will ensure that the bottom of the tart stays flat as it bakes, otherwise it will puff up and you won't be able to fill it with the frangipane.) 

Transfer the tart pan to the oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Lift the edge of the foil to check the crust, if it looks set, then remove the foil and the rice/beans/pie weights. Transfer the tart shell back to the oven and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes until the edges just start to become golden brown. Remove the tart shell from the oven and allow to cool. 

To make the frangipane: place the butter and sugar in the bowl of a food processor and process until the butter and sugar are well mixed and fluffy. Add the almond flour and zest and process until well mixed.  Add the eggs, vanilla and liquor of choice, and process until well mixed, scraping down the sides of the processor bowl as necessary.

To assemble and bake the tart: Pour the frangipane into the cooled tart shell. Starting from the outside edge of the tart, insert the peach slices cut side down into the frangipane,

overlapping them as you place them in the tart shell. As you add more slices, the peaches will start to take the form of an unfolding rose. Once you have reached the very center of the tart, place it in the oven and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the frangipane is golden brown and puffed. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Remove the tart from the pan, slice, and serve warm or at room temperature.

So corny....

Nothing says summer like fresh corn on the cob--butter dripping down your chin and kernels getting stuck in your teeth. Corn is everywhere in the stores right now and incredibly inexpensive--I just bought corn at 4 ears for a dollar, and you can probably find it even cheaper at a farm stand. Needless to say, at that price, I bought way more corn than I probably should have, but hey, I do have a blog to write! 

Growing up, we always boiled our corn, but I actually prefer to grill it. Grilling can be done with the outer husk still on the cob, or with the corn shucked. Leaving the husk on holds more of the moisture in the cob, and the green husk leaves also give a little flavor to the corn. If you're going to leave the husk on, though, it is very important that you soak the corn in water for at least an hour before grilling, otherwise the husk could literally burst into flames on the grill. I usually peel back the top part of the husk and remove the majority of the corn silk, then close up the husk and plunge the corn into a large bowl of water. After grilling, simply peel back the outer husks, slather on some butter and sprinkle with salt.

There's a second school of thought on grilling corn, and that is to shuck the corn before grilling. This is actually the method I prefer. After removing the husk leaves and corn silk, I drizzle the kernels with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and place the cobs on a hot grill or grill pan. As you see good grill marks develop on the kernels, turn the cob until it is well marked on all sides--and don't be surprised if some of the kernels start to burst. Grilling without the husk dries out the corn a bit as it cooks, you'll even see the kernels start to shrivel. But, I think it actually makes the corn taste better--you get more more smokiness, and the slight dehydration of the kernels concentrates the flavors and makes it taste more "corny" to me. I don't even put butter on corn grilled this way, I eat it just as it is off the cob.

Of course, there is so much more you can do with corn other than eat it straight off the cob--and yes, it is VERY delicious just that way. But, I was feeling inspired, so I put together a couple of other recipes that will give you new, tasty ways to enjoy your favorite summer vegetable.

Grilled Corn Salsa

Makes about 3 cups of salsa

4 ears grilled corn

2 plum tomatoes, cored and diced

1 large jalapeno pepper, finely chopped

1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced

¼ cup chopped cilantro leaves

½ teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground cumin

juice of a lime

Kosher salt to taste

Cut the kernels off the corn cobs and place in a large bowl. Mix in the rest of the ingredients. Season to taste and serve. It makes a great garnish to grilled chicken or fish, or eat it with chips straight out of the bowl.

Cheesy Corn Casserole

Serves 12

12 ears of corn, shucked and silks removed

1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter

2 large shallots, finely chopped

¾ cup all purpose flour

4 cups whole milk

2 teaspoons Kosher salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

8 ounces cheese (I used half chevre and half white cheddar)

¾ cup fresh chopped herbs (I used basil, chives and lemon thyme from my garden)

1 ½ cups panko bread crumbs

½ cup finely grated parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon butter, melted, plus additional to butter the casserole dish

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter a 9x13 inch casserole dish.

Place the corn on a baking sheet and place in the oven. Bake until the corn kernels are beginning to shrivel, about 45 minutes. You'll want to turn the corn about half way through baking. By baking the corn instead of boiling it, you will cook out some of the moisture. If you skip this step, the corn will release enough liquid during cooking in the casserole to make the sauce very watery. After the corn as cooled enough to handle, cut the kernels off the cob. You should have about 8 cups of corn kernels.

Melt the butter in a large sauce pan over medium heat. When completely melted, add the shallots and cook, stirring, until the shallots are softened and translucent, about 4 to 5 minutes. Sprinkle the flour over the shallots and mix into the butter and shallots until it is fully absorbed and beginning to bubble. Whisk in the milk, and stir well to evenly dissolve the butter and flour mixture into the milk--no lumps!  Mix in the spices and mustard and continue to cook stirring, until the sauce fully thickens, about 5 to 6 minutes. Add the cheese and continue to stir until it is melted and mixed evenly through the sauce. Mix in the corn kernels and herbs. Taste and adjust seasoning.

Transfer the mixture to the buttered baking dish. In a small bowl, mix together the panko, parmesan and melted butter. Spread the panko mixture over the top of the corn mixture in an even layer. Place the casserole dish in the oven and bake until the bread crumbs are browned and the casserole is bubbling, about 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before serving. Try not to lick the bottom of the casserole dish after you've served your guests. Although, what happens in the kitchen, stays in the kitchen.

 

A bowl full of cherries...

One of the things I've discovered and truly enjoy since I've moved to the northeastern part of the country is apple season. It's an annual autumn tradition--apple picking. What can quickly happen, though, is you end up picking MANY more pounds of apples than you intended when you set out. That's led to another autumn tradition that I've adopted--preserving and canning that bounty of apples to become holiday gifts for my friends and family. But every autumn, as I spend my days off from work steaming up my house, canning gallons of apple butter, apple chutney, and cinnamon apples, I kick myself for not thinking to do the same with other fruits and vegetables during the summer. But not this summer...

We've been using a lot of cherries in our recipes at work in recent weeks. I mean a LOT of cherries. But, I found myself inspired, and so today, I turned 10 pounds of sweet cherries into brandied cherries. What can you do with brandied cherries? They're great on ice cream or on pound cake. They're also very good in cocktails. Or, just eating by the spoonful straight out of the jar.

If you don't want to go through the entire process of canning the cherries, I would cut the recipe at least in half, and then just store them in an airtight container in your refrigerator. They should keep for a couple of weeks. Assuming you don't eat them all sooner.

Brandied Cherries

Makes about 25 half pint jars

10 pounds sweet cherries
3 ½ cups granulated sugar
6 cups water

1 ²/₃ cups brandy (or try bourbon, vodka, or amaretto)

Wash the cherries, remove the stems and pits. Transfer to a large, non-reactive saucepan or Dutch oven. Add the sugar and water. Bring to a boil over medium to medium high heat and allow to boil for about 10 minutes. Using a spoon or ladle, skim away any foam that forms on top of the cherries as they cook.

While the cherries are cooking, prepare your jars for canning. Remove the lids and rings from the jars. Bring a large stock pot of water to a rapid boil. Sterilize the lids and rings by lowering them into the boiling water for about 3 minutes. Transfer them to a clean towel. Repeat with the jars.

Carefully ladle the hot cherries into the hot jars, leaving about ½ inch of headspace. Spoon 1 tablespoon of brandy into the top of each jar, then cover the jar with a lid and a screw top ring. Tighten the ring to just finger tight.

When the stock pot of water has returned to a boil, lower the jars into the pot, standing them upright and in a single layer across the bottom of the pot. Make sure the jars are completely submerged under the water. Cover the pot and when the water in the pot returns to a boil, set a timer for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, remove the jars from the pot and set on a clean towel. Repeat the process with the remaining jars, being sure to let the water come back to the boil each time.

Let the jars sit undisturbed until they are room temperature. You should hear a noticeable "plinking" sound as the jars cool and pull the center of the lids down. After they have cooled, gently press on the center of each of the lids to be sure they have fully depressed. Any jars with lids that have not pulled down tight have not properly sealed. Place those jars in the refrigerator and enjoy them first. 

Down the shore....

Something kind of exciting is happening at work. Sur La Table has partnered with the Smithsonian Museum of American History for the development of a new demonstration kitchen in the Wallace H. Coulter Performance Plaza at the museum. On Fridays beginning in July, the museum will put on Food Fridays at the National Museum of American History, where guest chefs partner with museum food historians for a cooking demonstration for the museum guests. Sur La Table chefs will be the featured chefs on one Friday per month, and I've been asked to do the first SLT session on July 17th. The demonstrations will be held at 11am and 1pm, if you're in the DC area that day, I'd love to see you at the museum!

Each month is a different topic, July is "Summertime Cooking in America". When brainstorming ideas with my bosses at SLT and the Smithsonian representatives, we started talking about the summer tradition along the mid-Atlantic and New England coast of "going to the shore". When I lived in DC, of course folks talked about enjoying a weekend at the Delaware or Maryland beaches, I even spent a weekend in Rehoboth Beach myself. But "going to the shore" has an entirely different meaning in Philadelphia and New Jersey. The city empties. People rent houses and spend the entire summer at the shore. The local news stations set up satellite studios up and down the Jersey and Delaware shore, and they lead the news with stories of beach town festivals, changes in local regulations over beach access fees, and the traffic reports are centered on which routes are the most backed up going to/from the beach. This is the story from Delaware up the coast to Maine, and it was the perfect inspiration for our demonstration menu.

For the demonstration, I'll be preparing Maryland Crabcakes, Old Fashioned Maine Lobster Roll, and New England Clam Chowder. I've got pretty good recipes already for the crabcakes and lobster roll, but I didn't have one for clam chowder. So, I spent my afternoon in the kitchen, and I'm pretty pleased with the results. I hope you think so, too.

New England Clam Chowder

Serves 8

1 50-count bag of cherrystone clams

4 cups water

1 cup diced bacon

1 large white onion, diced

3 tablespoons all purpose flour

2 large russet potatoes, peeled and diced

2 cups cream

2 tablespoons chopped chives

Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste

Place the clams in a colander and rinse thoroughly with cold water. Discard any clams that have cracked shells or that do not close. Place the cleaned clams in the pasta or steamer insert of a large pot.

Add the water to the pot and bring to a boil. Place the insert with the clams into the pot and cover with a lid. Continue to boil until the clams have opened, about 4 to 5 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and allow to cool. When the clams are cool enough to handle, remove the meat from the shells and place on a cutting board; discard the empty shells and any unopened clams. Roughly chop the clam meat and place in a small bowl. Pour the clam cooking water water through a cheesecloth-lined sieve into a bowl and set aside.

Place a large soup pot over medium low heat and add the bacon. Cook the bacon, stirring occasionally, until the fat has rendered and the bacon is browned and crisp. Using a slotted spoon, remove the bacon from the pot and place on a paper towel lined plate. Increase the heat to medium and add the onions to the pot with the bacon fat. Cook, stirring, until the onions are softened and translucent, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle the flour over the onions and mix through. Add the reserved clam cooking water and potatoes to the onions and bring to a high simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes are cooked through, about 10 minutes. Stir in the cream and continue to simmer for about 5 minutes more. Stir in the reserved bacon. Taste and adjust seasoning with Kosher salt and black pepper.

To serve, ladle into bowls and garnish with the chopped chives.

Lazy pie...

When I first started teaching classes in Arlington, VA, I taught mostly baking and pastry classes. I've always been comfortable making desserts, those of you who've read my blog from the beginning know I taught myself how to cook by baking my mom's cookies. So, I quickly became the official pastry instructor at our Pentagon Row store. One of my favorite classes to teach back then was pie making. I really like teaching the classes where my students learn a specific technique--knife skills, pasta, gnocchi, pies. I feel like they're leaving me with a new set of skills, that I've expanded their world a bit. 

Pie crust in particular seems to be a challenge, that's usually what most of my students are concerned about learning to do well. I never seemed to have a problem with it, and I don't really know why, it was just one of those things that I guess I mastered early on. I remember one day in particular in culinary school, our topics that day included making pate brisee (pie dough) and breaking down and deboning chickens. In my team that day, I was partnered with two guys, both of whom could butcher a chicken with their eyes closed, but were terrified of pastry. So, I helped them with their pie crusts, and they walked me through breaking down my first chicken. I think it was a fair exchange.

Pie crust is four simple ingredients--flour, salt, butter and water. Depending on how you put them together, you can get a buttery, flaky, tender loveliness....or a pasty, tough, piece of cardboard. The two most important things to manage for a successful pie crust is the temperature of your ingredients and the amount of water you add to the dough. Keep your butter cold, you want to cut the butter into the flour, not make a paste. The separate, distinct pieces of butter mixed into the dough are what result in those flaky layers in the crust. In order to help manage the temperature of the butter, use cold water to make the dough, but don't use too much. You need just enough water for the dough to come together. Too much and your dough will shrink as it bakes--if you've ever had a crust break and leak in the pie plate as it bakes, this is why.

The other challenge my students have is in rolling out the dough. I would love to find a young psychology student who needs a topic for a research paper, I'm convinced that how a person approaches rolling out a pie crust tells more about their basic personality than any test on paper can. I have students that are so focused on perfection, that they start to sweat if the slightest crack appears on edge of the dough or if it isn't staying in a perfect circle, and I have to jump across the kitchen to stop them from balling the dough back up and starting over. That's just about the worst thing you can do, it over-develops the gluten in the dough and pretty much guarantees the dough will be tough and chewy. Then I have students that just roll and roll the dough, blissfully unaware that it's completely uneven, nowhere close to being round, and don't even realize how far off the rails they've gone until it's too late to fix it--and they're often completely unfazed and happy as clams. And, don't get me started on fitting the dough to a pie plate and crimping the edges--that can put many of my students completely over the edge.

I like starting my students out with a galette. I call it a "lazy" pie because you don't use a pie pan. It takes some of the stress out of the situation, not only do you bypass the challenges of fitting the dough to a pie pan and crimping the edges, but the dough doesn't have to be rolled to a perfect round circle. In fact, I think galettes are more beautiful the more imperfect they look. This time of year especially, when we're starting to get such beautiful fruit in the markets, galettes are not only easy, but they really shine. Enjoy!

Honeyed Apricot Galette

Makes one 9 to 10 inch galette

For the dough:

1 ¼ cup all purpose flour

½ teaspoon Kosher salt

1 stick (4 ounces) of unsalted butter, cold and cut into 10 to 12 pieces

3 to 4 tablespoons cold water

For the filling:

2 pounds fresh apricots, pits removed and sliced

¼ cup honey

2 tablespoons all purpose flour

juice of ½ a lemon

1 egg, beaten

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Preheat the oven to 375 F and place a rack in the center.

To make the dough, place the flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse to mix. Add the butter pieces and pulse until the mixture looks like damp sand with pebbles.

Add about 2 tablespoons of water and pulse to mix through. Add additional water, about ½ a tablespoon at a time, pulsing the food process to mix, until the dough just begins to come together into large pieces. 

Turn the dough out onto a clean work surface and bring it together into a round flat disk. There's no need to knead the dough, just press it together. Kneading it will only further develop the gluten and toughen the dough. Forming the dough into a round flat disk will make it easier to roll out later, the dough will tend to stay in the shape it starts in.

Wrap the dough disk in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for a minimum of 30 minutes. This will allow the butter to get cold again, it allows the flour to fully absorb the water and the dough to evenly hydrate, and it will allow the gluten to relax. You can also freeze the dough at this point, a great way to get ahead of your holiday baking.

While the dough is chilling, make the filling. Mix the apricots, honey, flour and lemon juice together in a bowl. Make sure the apricots are evenly coated with the other ingredients.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator, unwrap it and place it on a lightly floured work surface. Roll out the dough into a 12 to 14 inch circle about ¹/₈^th of an inch thick. Carefully transfer the dough to a parchment paper lined baking sheet.

Spoon the apricots into the center of the dough, making a mound of the fruit and leaving a 2 to 3 inch border of dough around the edge. Lift the dough edge, folding and pleating around the perimeter of the galette, covering the edge of the fruit. Using a silicone brush, brush a thin layer of beat egg on the exposed dough, then sprinkle with the sugar.

Bake for 40 to 50 minutes until the crust is browned and the fruit filling is bubbling in the center of the galette. (The starch in the flour is activated when the liquid in the filling boils. If the filling isn't bubbling in the very center of the galette, the flour has not fully activated, and the filling will be watery and run when the galette is cut to serve.)  Allow to cool, slice and serve.

Spice it up!

The time has come, my online cooking class is now LIVE and available for registration on Craftsy!!! Just got to:

http://www.craftsy.com/…/cooking-with-spices-technique…/5163

I hope you enjoy watching the class as much as I enjoyed putting it together!

One of the features of the Craftsy platform is that the online students can ask me, the instructor,questions. They are sent to my Craftsy inbox and I can respond to them when I log in to my instructor account. I've already had a few, it's been fun to see what the students are curious about so far. During the process of developing the class, one of the most frequent questions I got was how to use certain spices and techniques, particularly the spice powders, for different dishes than what we presented in the individual lessons. I've even had a question along these lines from one of my Craftsy students. So with that in mind, this week's recipe showcases another use for chili powder.

We spent an entire lesson on chili peppers, and those of you who have been following the blog these last couple of months will remember the posting where I made chili powder from scratch. For that post, I made a traditional Texas beef chili, but since then, I've been really enjoying using the chili powder in my everyday cooking. It makes a great spice rub for any kind of grilled meat. So, for this week's recipe, I thought I'd try it on salmon. I hope you enjoy it.

Chili Rubbed Salmon with Grilled Nectarine Salsa

Serves 4

For the salsa:

2 nectarines, cut in half and pit removed

2 tablespoons canola oil

¹/₃ cup thinly sliced green onions

¼ cup diced radish

½ cup diced, seeded English cucumber

½ cup sliced grape tomatoes

2 serrano chili peppers, seeded and finely minced

2 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro

Juice of 1 lime

Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste

For the salmon:

4 salmon filets, about 6 ounces each, skinless and pin bones removed

2 tablespoons Texas chili powder

Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

3 tablespoons canola oil

To make the salsa: Heat a grill pan or outdoor grill to medium-high heat. Using a silicone brush, lightly coat the nectarines with the oil. Place the nectarines on the grill, and cook, turning as needed, until they are well marked and beginning to soften. Transfer the nectarines to a cutting board and dice.

Place the nectarines and the rest of the ingredients in a bowl and stir to combine. Season to taste with Kosher salt and black pepper.

To make the salmon: Season the salmon filets with salt and pepper and sprinkle both sides with the chili powder. Heat a skillet over medium to medium high heat, and when hot, add the oil. Place the salmon filets in the skillet skin side up and cook until well browned, about 3 to 4 minutes. Flip the salmon filets over and continue to cook another 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer the filets to individual serving plates.

To finish, spoon some of the salsa over each of the filets and serve immediately.

Peanut butter and jelly...

One of the things I have fun doing is taking a classic food item and re-interpreting it into a different dish altogether. Once I took the idea of a tomato basil salad and turned it into a cupcake (I'll save that recipe for a future blog posting!). Today, I've turned a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into a French macaron.

Macarons are not to be confused with macaroons, the cookie made from shredded coconut. Macarons are French sandwich cookies made with almond meal, sugar and egg white and filled with everything from buttercream, to chocolate, to jam, to citrus curd. As I like to tell my students, they taste divine, but they are the fussiest eff-ing cookies to make. The slightest variation in meringue stiffness, texture of the almond meal, oven temperature, baking time, oven rack position, you name it, can cascade through the rest of the recipe and have dramatic results in the final cookie. 

For example, the characteristic features of a macaron are the smooth surface of the cookie atop a ruffled "foot" base. In order to achieve this, the cookie batter is first piped onto a baking sheet, then allowed to dry until a skin forms on the top of the cookie. You test the skin by lightly touching it--if it is dry to the touch, you are okay to bake, but if they are still tacky/sticky, you need to wait. If the cookies have dried just right, the skin holds intact and rises straight up off the sheet pan, leaving the ruffled foot. If they are not dry enough, the cookies will "mushroom", the top of the cookies will expand and crack, and you won't get the foot formation. If the cookies have dried too much, the top skin can become stuck to the base, either causing the top to rise unevenly or crack. And this is just the impacts of drying time--don't get me started on over/under mixing the batter!

Because macarons are so fussy, precise measurements are key, so in the following recipe, you'll see I use weights instead of volumes for the ingredients. Also, the baking times and temperatures in the recipe are what worked for me in my home oven. I can tell you that if I was baking this recipe at work, I'd use different times and temperatures based on how those ovens operate. You will have to try baking a tray or two (or more) before you figure out what works best for your home oven. The cookies pictured in the photos are from the second batch I baked--it took me a couple of attempts to figure out my oven, and even so, I'm still not 100% satisfied. But, I'll work on that with my next attempt. In the meantime, enjoy!

Peanut Butter and Jelly Macarons

Makes 2 to 3 dozen cookies

For the cookies:

7 ounces powdered sugar

1 ½ ounces roasted, lightly salted peanuts

2 ¾ ounces almond meal

4 large egg whites (about 4 ounces)

pinch of Kosher salt

3 ½ ounces granulated sugar

Brown gel food coloring (optional)

For the Concord grape jelly buttercream:

2 large egg whites (about 2 ounces)

4 ounces granulated sugar

6 ounces unsalted butter, softened

¼ cup Concord grape jelly

To make the cookies:

Preheat the oven to 350°F and place a rack in the center. Line 3 baking sheets with silpat baking mats or parchment paper. (I liked the results I got using the silpat best.)

Place about ¹/₃ of the powdered sugar and the peanuts in a food processor and pulse to breakdown the peanuts into a fine meal. Add the almond meal and about half of the remaining powdered sugar and pulse until a fine powder is formed. Transfer the nut and sugar mixture and the remaining powdered sugar into a fine mesh sieve set over a large bowl. Sift the mixture into the bowl, using the back of a wooden spoon to press any remaining bits of almond meal of peanut through the mesh.

Place the egg whites and salt into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Whip on medium high speed until frothy and white in color. Gradually add in the granulated sugar, and once all the sugar has been added, increase the speed and whip until stiff peaks are achieved. Remove the bowl from the mixer.

Scatter about ¹/₃ of the almond mixture over the egg whites and gently fold them into the egg whites. If you are choosing to use the food color gel, add it at this time. Add the second third of the almond mixture to the egg whites and fold as before. When incorporated, fold in the remaining almond mixture. Continue to fold and mix the batter until it is loose enough to slowly flow and drip off the spatula.

Transfer the batter to a piping bag fitted with a ½ inch round piping tip. Carefully pipe rounds of batter onto the prepared baking sheets. You can pipe them to whatever size you like, but be careful to leave space in between the cookies as they will spread after piping. (I piped mine a little larger than 1 ¼ inches in diameter, and the finished cookies are about 2 inches in diameter.) Lift the baking sheets a few inches off the counter and drop them, this will allow any trapped air bubbles to release. Let the cookies stand at room temperature to dry. The cookies are ready to bake with they are dry and not sticky when lightly touched by your fingertip. This may take anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes. 

Bake the cookies, one sheet at a time, for 6 minutes, then rotate the pan in the oven and bake for another 3 minutes. Let the macarons cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely. 

To make the Concord grape jelly buttercream:

Place the egg whites and sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer and place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Whisk the egg whites by hand until the sugar is completely dissolved and the egg whites are hot to the touch.

Attach the bowl to the stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment and whisk on medium high speed until stiff glossy peaks form. Continue to whisk until the bottom of the bowl no longer feels warm to the touch.  Reduce the speed to medium low and add the butter, about 1 tablespoon at time, whisking well after each addition and scraping down with a silicon spatula as needed. After all the butter has been added, increase the mixer speed to high and whisk until fluffy. 

With the mixer on medium low speed, add the grape jelly and whisk until thoroughly incorporated. Transfer the buttercream to a piping bag fitted with a star tip.

To assemble the cookies:

You will likely have cookies of slightly varying sizes and shapes, so take a few minutes to organized matched pairs. Pipe a circle of the buttercream on the bottom of one cookie, then top it with its matching mate to form a sandwich. Repeat with the remaining pairs of cookies.

You can store the cookies in a closed container at room temperature, but I recommend storing them in the refrigerator. Storage in the refrigerator will also soften the texture of the cookie and make them even more delicious.