Thursday, July 30, 2009

Macaron, Attempt #1


I've never eaten a French Macaron before, yet somehow over the past six months I've become down right obsessed with these little sweet almond confections. Maybe its the wonderful colors that I never see in regular cookies, or the fact that they take a little more skill to make then classic American favorites. Or maybe its for the much simpler reason; so pretty! 
Macarons are like little jewels but better because you can eat them !


But I just kept seeing them everywhere, on the covers of books (which incidentally made NO MENTION OF THEM on its pages..false advertisement if you ask me!), In Sex and the City episodes, on MTV, MTV!! of all places...I knew I had to make them and then learn to master them.
 
Macarons are a traditional French pastry, made of egg whitesalmond powder, confectioners sugar and granulated sugar. This pastry  comes out as a round meringue-like domes with a flat base. PLEASE don't confuse these with the American coconut Macaroon... that's a whole 'nother animal that I don't even like. French Macarons are crispy and chewy and moist and nutty and have FILLING, yep that's right, double trouble! Cause these little babies are turned into sandwich cookies.

Only five ingredients for super cute deliciousness?! Yes please! 

Ingredients
225 Grams of Confectioners Sugar
125 Grams Almond Flour*
110 Grams Egg Whites , aged overnight and at room temperature**
30 Grams Granulated Sugar
Pinch Salt

* I found almond flour at our local organic/health food grocers, its in the refrigerator section, and a little pricey. If you can't find almond flour you can put almonds in the food processor with some of the confectioners sugar and go crazy with the pulse button until the right texture is reached.
** Aging the egg whites helps when beating the whites, not only do they whip faster but they tend not to break if you over whip them. Its suggested that you age only the whites but that tends to give me the heebie-jeebies so I just put the entire thing, egg shell and all, on the counter and let them sit overnight... and voila! when you wake up they're aged AND room temperature, hey two birds, meet one stone. 

Directions;
Combine almond flour and confectioners sugar, if the almond flour is particularly lumpy either push the mixture through a sieve or pulse in a food processor.

Whip egg whites with salt on medium speed until foamy. Increase the speed to high and gradually add the granulated sugar . Continue to beat until the egg whites reach a stiff peak. This is the time to add food coloring, for this trial run I used regular liquid food coloring drops but I wouldn't recommend it, you cant get super saturated colors and even for the pastel color I achieved I had to use a tremendous amount of coloring. Next time I plan on using Gel food coloring , like Wiltons, which are used for coloring Icing. 

with a rubber spatula, fold in almond flour/sugar mix, mixture should deflate a little and flow like magma ( don't you love recipes that use the term MAGMA!?)
Pipe batter onto parchment lined baking sheet in 1 1/2 inch circles. Tap the bottom of the pan to remove excess bubbles, then let  rest uncovered for 1-2 hours ( this is a VITAL part of the equation, the top surface dries out enough to create the smooth shell, one of the things that makes a macaron a macaron)


Bake at 325 degrees of 10-11 minutes, keep the oven door propped open slightly with the handle of a wooden spoon.

Let the cookies cool and fill, if you don't plan on eating these immediatly you can freeze the cookies unfilled in the freezer.  


For my first attempt I think I did pretty well, another thing I think I need to ask santa for is a real piping bag. Let a lesson be learned here.... a Ziploc bag with a hole cut in it does not always work as well as a real honest to goodness pastry bag with tips. I piped them a little to large , there was soo much cookie-sweetness that I thought that adding a filling would be a sugar overload so I'm leaving that until the next time I make these 

1 comment:

  1. If that was your first try you did an amazing job mine didnt come out half as nice as that my tops where almost hollow!! Hopfully making my own almond meal will do the trick!! And I to tried the baggy cut and your right it really doesnt do a great job!! ;op

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