I’ve been a little obsessed with macarons lately. It all started when one of my co-workers mentioned them and I thought to myself, despite all the baking and eating I love to do, I’ve never ever tasted a macaron. WHAT IS WITH THAT. To be honest, I couldn’t even fathom what they even tasted like. And with that, I did some research. Probably about two weeks of it, too. (Chris was not impressed). The first batch I made, total failure. Tasty, but faiiiiil.
Macarons are a famous French meringue cookie with ganache or buttercream sandwiched inside. With the crispy outer shell and soft, chewy inside, this cookie is a delicacy that causes many bakers, both professional and amateur alike, a lot of grief.
I read a lot of different recipes that said that the egg whites had to be aged at least 24 hours. This means that the whites need to be separated from the yolks and be sitting at room temperature for 24 hours. I read somewhere that the proteins in the egg whites unwind as they age, which affects the structure of the meringue. Stella’s Bravetart Myths about Macarons talks about how the age and temperature of the eggs don’t even matter. And drying isn’t necessary. And she prefers that the oven -isn’t- cracked. So I had some hope.
However, the first four batches failed terribly. My macarons were flat, bubbly, crispy and did not have feet. (Feet are the bubbly layer that sticks out from underneath the shiny domes)
There are about a bajillion things that different recipes say to do: you gotta age the egg whites, dry the almond flour, dry the shells at least half an hour, crack open the oven…
It’s exhausting.
Finally, I caved. I aged my egg whites, I dried my shells, and I cracked the oven open (granted my new cookie sheets were slightly too big for my oven so I had to put them in sideways and the sheet propped the door open). AND THEY WORKED. Though I may experiment next batch, because I think the fact that I used a kitchen scale to measure made this batch actually work.
Here are all the blogs I read that helped me the most:
(N.B. The pictures are kind of different colours because they’re taken from different batches… That’s why some of them are more red than others =P)
Ingredients: (recipe from BraveTart)
- 144 g egg whites, aged and room temperature. (I only aged for about 12 hours)
- 230 g powdered sugar
- 115 g almonds (I used blanched and slivered) – finely ground.
- 72 g granulated sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp cocoa powder (I made them “red velvet”-y so there had to be a subtle chocolate flavour)
- a dab of red colouring paste
Cream cheese icing:
- 1/4 cup butter, room temperature
- 1/2 a package of cream cheese, room temperature
- 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- (I added some food colouring because I felt like it)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 300F.
Preheat oven to 300F.
- Pulse the almonds in your food processor/blender until fine. Add half the powdered sugar and pulse until evenly ground. (I added the cocoa here)
- Sift until you see the bigger chunks. Throw back into the food processor with the other half of powdered sugar and pulse into fine again.
- Dump eggs and granulated sugar into a clean metal or plastic bowl. Whip on low setting until the eggs get a little foamy (about 2-3 minutes). Bring it up to medium speed until the eggs get a bit thicker (another 3 minutes). Once the eggs get to soft peak stage (see picture below), add the vanilla extract and colouring paste. Whip on high until the colouring is evenly distributed.
- Add half the almond mixture on top of the meringue. Fold the meringue and almond mixture together. After about 10 folds, add the second half of the almond mixture. Make sure you scrape the sides and incorporate it all in.
After about 30 folds, it’ll be kind of a lumpy, droopy mass. Around 40 strokes, when you hold up the spatula and drip the mixture back, it’ll be a flat ribbon that’ll incorporate back into the mixture.
-
Fill a piping bag with half the mixture (all of it probably won’t fit into one), and pipe equal-sized rounds onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet.
- Let them dry while the oven preheats. The shells should be dry on the edges in order for the shells to bake up instead of expanding in the oven (this is how the feet develop).
- Bake them for about 10 minutes, or until the meringue is completely set. You’ll be able to tell when you touch the top of the shells and wobble ‘em back and forth. If they still are wobbly, bake for another minute or two. Once they’re stiff and lift completely off the paper, they be ready!
- Peel off the parchment and let cool on a wire rack. Once completely cooled, match the shells to another one that’s the same size and whip up that icing. Put that stuff in a bag.
- Pipe a dollop of icing on one side of the shells, and gently sandwich on top. (Don’t press in the middle, use the edges to squish down the shell)
- And then…
OM,
NOM,
NOM.
I did have a look at the BraveTart recipe and method. Everything is so well detailed, one cannot miss the French macarons anymore.Harldy do I find recipes mentioning the aging of the whites. The 12-24h aging time depends on the weather I think.The close-up of the half eaten macaron shows well how good the texture is. Bravo!