For probably close to a year now I've been wanting to make Macarons, not the coconut ones, but the delicate and pretty sandwich ones. It's taken me this long to give them a try because every blog I've read (and I've read a lot) focus on how difficult they are to make, that almost everything that can go wrong will, and you have to leave your egg whites sitting out to age for a couple of days (that seemed sketchy to me). Anyway, my friend Melissa recently made some and had success, this gave me the courage to give them a try; I now had someone I could talk to about the techniques she tried and what worked for her, we actually chatted via Gmail the entire time I was making my cookies.
So it went like this:
- I cracked and separated my eggs on Tuesday night and let them sit all day Wednesday and Thursday
- Thursday I got organized; I pre-weighed all my ingredients (every Macaron recipe I've found is in grams so good thing I have a scale), got my mixer fitted with the whisk, and I lined my baking sheets with parchment paper that I'd drawn 1.5 inch circles on so I made the same size cookies
- Now it was down to actually making the cookies, I followed a recipe and instructions from
Brave Tart
- I mixed my egg whites with the sugar and salt - mixed for a total of 9 minutes
- Sifted the almond flour with the powdered sugar
- Added the vanilla and coloring to the egg/sugar/salt mixture (meringue) - mixed for one more minute
- Added the almond/sugar to the meringue and started to hand mix (fold and press) with a rubber spatula, once I thought the consistency was right I spooned the batter into a piping bag fitted with a regular round tip
- Piped the cookies onto the prepared baking sheets and let sit for 15-18 minutes so they could firm up
- Then popped them into the oven to bake and crossed my fingers
The results were mildly successful and most importantly they were edible, but here is what I think I did wrong:
- I didn't sift the almond flour and powdered sugar enough
- I didn't mix the meringue, almond flour, and powered sugar into the right consistency; my batter was still kind of lumpy and didn't spread like I thought it should
- I cooked two tray at once (one on top and one on bottom) and I over cooked them...my first batch produced hollow cookies, which I don't think is right
- My second batch was just one tray and I cooked them for a less time, 15 rather than 18 minutes, they were better but I still think they need to be cooked for less time
All in all, I was very happy with my first attempt. Having Melissa there to talk to helped a ton and Brave Tart made the whole process seem less scary. I will definitely be trying these again.
Oh and I used the Bailey's Ganache recipe from my St. Patty's Day
Guinness Cupcakes...delicious!!!
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ingredients ready to go |
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ready to go into the oven |
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they were supposed to be purple |
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Success (sort of) | |
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