I’ve recently become obsessed with French macarons from a
local sweet-boutique in New Orleans called Sucre www.shopsucre.com . The past few weeks I’ve
been reading a lot about the history of macarons, how they are made… and of
course, this sparked a desire to attempt to bake my own! Now I’m certainly no skilled baker, so I’m
sharing what I’ve read and learned for fun!
From my readings, they are one of the more difficult French pastries to
master. Things like getting the right
consistency when mixing, baking the perfect amount of time and the perfect temperature
are a few of the must-have components in the equation to achieving the perfect
macaron! However, I certainly have some
lessons learned from my first attempt and I’m eager to experiment further with
my batter and flavors.
The recipe I used was pretty common:
3 Egg Whites (need to be at room temperature!)
2 cups of Confectioners’ Sugar
½ Cup White Sugar
1 Cup of Almond Flour (I grounded fresh almonds as a substitute
and don’t recommended – find the Almond flour!)
Pinch of Salt
¼ teaspoon of Cream of Tartar
First, preheat your oven to 2750F, and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. It’s important you don’t add any non-stick sprays to the parchment as you don’t want any extra butter or fats on the macarons.
·
Sift the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour together,
and discard any large clumps of almond pieces.
This step is important as failure to do this will make the top part of
your macarons bumpy and you won’t get that pretty, smooth look so try to get this
mixture as fine as possible. Set aside.
· Place the three egg whites (remember, you want
them at room temperature!) into your mixer and beat until they become
foamy. Next, add the sugar, cream of tartar and the pinch of salt into the
mixer and whip until you are able to form a white peak that will stand upright. This took me a good 6-8 minutes using my
electric mixer on high speed. Now you
are ready to add the food coloring. From
many articles that I read, the color fades a few shades during the baking
process, so don’t be shy to add a few extra drops.
· Slowly mix the almond flour and confectioners’
sugar mixture into the egg mixture. This
step is also very important as you don’t want to under mix, or over mix. Under mixing is going to give you cracked
macarons with no feet while over mixing is going to give you flat macarons with
again, no feet. You want a thick, lava
flowing type consistency. For my fellow new-to-baking
macaron friends, the “feet” of the macarons
are the puffy or ruffled bottoms that form during the baking process. If you look closely, you will see them in the
below picture.
·
Now it’s time to transfer your batter into a
pastry bag. I didn’t have any pastry
bags on hand, so I used a gallon-sized Ziploc and slightly snipped one of the
corners (another frugal, resourceful tip!).
Pipe out ¾” rounds onto the ungreased parchment paper, and once
complete, tap your pan on the countertop a few times to release any air bubbles.
·
Allow your macarons to sit out for about 25
minutes before placing into the office.
You want the macarons to be tacky to the touch, but not stick to your
fingertip. Don’t rush this process! Depending on the humidity in your kitchen,
you might need them to sit out longer than a 25 minute time frame.
· Bake your macarons for 20 minutes. Pull out the baking pan and attempt to pick
up one macaron. If it sticks to the
parchment, immediately return to the oven and bake for another 5 minutes. You want them to slide off the parchment
paper, not stick!
· Once the macarons are done baking and have
slightly cooled, it’s time to add your filling.
I chose to keep it simple and purchased pre-made fillers (and my family’s
favorites) by putting caramel with a sprinkle of sea-salt to one half, and
Nutella to the other half. Start by
delicately applying the filling to the center of one macaroon and use a
spreading knife to spread the filling around the rest of the cookie. Then take another macaron half and gently
place on top the filled side.
Viola! Now it’s time
to enjoy your French macarons!
A random cute fact I stumbled across during my research…
The filling of macarons is often referred to as the “mousseline
sauce”. Marie-Antoinette of France was
known for her love of macarons, showcasing towers of them at her glamorous costume
parties in Versailles. She even named her
cat Macaron and knick-named her first born daughter Marie-Therese “Mousseline”.
Au revoir, mes amis!
kara.michelle
"Let them eat cake!” ~ Marie Antoinette
