Macarons-- THAT's what all the fuss is about!

Day 3

Disaster... that pretty much sums it up. Right when I got home from work, to a hot apartment, I knew it wasn't going to be a good idea to take on the macaron list I had prepared the day before. Well, I did anyway...I had to...I had asked Ryan to set out the egg whites a few hours before to come to room temp. Everything was ready. Oh...what a waste. I now know why French macarons are considered a very finicky cookie to make.
 

Let's just say out of the five flavors I made (banana-walnut, almond, strawberry, pistachio and spiced pecan) ZERO turned out. Maybe it was because I made a huge bowl of meringue and divided it five ways or maybe it was too humid/not humid enough or just too dang hot. Maybe I mixed the egg whites too much or had the wrong sugar egg ratio, or maybe the macaron gods were just not looking down favorably on me. Whatever the cause they were just a disaster (well, they still tasted good). I'll spare you the details of my mini breakdown after the second batch went in and slowly began to ooze out of the nicely formed shell. Ugh. I'll be taking a break from macarons for awhile.

Macarons-- Really, what's all the fuss about?

Day 2

After the first successful attempt I decided to try out new flavors. I came across Tartlette's post about strawberry macarons and was intrigued. I used the same basic shell recipe as I used before (Doughmesstic's) but substituted some of the powdered sugar for powdered strawberries. We had some freeze-dried strawberries that I finely ground in the coffee grinder. I didn't add an extracts or other flavorings. The other macaron I made was pistachio. Using the same recipe just substituting half of the almonds for pistachios.

When it came to the filling I decided on doing a vanilla buttercream for both. My only experience with making buttercream is the 1 stick of butter to 1lb powdered sugar with a dash of milk and flavoring. This time I opted to try something new and make the buttercream that Tarlette used for her strawberry macarons. I really didn't know what to expect with whisking the egg whites over the double boiler and hoped they were heated/mixed enough. I followed the rest of the recipe but realized that the only butter I had was salted and it resulted in a very buttery buttercream. To compensate I added more sugar and vanilla to half of it and added powdered strawberries to the other. By the time I was ready to assemble the macarons I was tired and rather sloppily slathered on the vanilla buttercream on the pistachio shells and strawberry buttercream on the strawberry shells. My official taste tester, Ryan, was eager to try these out but after our taste tests we both decided the buttercream was too much and ended up removing all but a very thin layer on each macaron. I still had the problem with the tops of the shells getting too dark but overall I though it was a success and took them into work the next day. They were a big hit! 

Although they were not perfect, I still thought they were great and decided I would make some more later in the week. The macaron frenzy continued...and to tell you the truth I was getting a little cocky...little did I know what awaited me later in the week...

Macarons--What's all the fuss about?

Day 1

The first time I ever tasted one of this delightful cookies (well, that I recall tasting) was this spring when one of my department's visiting scholars (from France) brought a beautiful pale green box and left it in the kitchen, sending out an e-mail that notified us all that he had brought in some Macarons from France...and to please enjoy. I made my way up to the kitchen and a colleague and I marveled at the box. We opened it up and discovered that they were not little mounds of coconut that we associate the word Macaroon with but an entirely different cookie (Macaron-note the one "o" ). We were fascinated by the beautiful colored cookies and made our way downstairs with a few to try. They were amazing and we immediately looked them up to discover what flavors we were trying. After a quick Google image search of "french macarons" we discovered that they were from Laduree. That night I  began looking for recipes to attempt to replicate this distinct almond cookie. After reading a bunch of complicated recipes I decided that it would be just too much work. I found recipes that instructed to leave the oven slightly open or to change the oven temp at different points during the baking. I also noticed that almost all of the recipes' measurements were by weight--quite difficult when you don't have a kitchen scale!

Fast forward 4+ months.
I came across Doughmesstic's blog and found a less terrifying recipe. I ran over to a chain home goods store and bought a coffee grinder and a kitchen scale and then off to the store to buy slivered almonds, egg whites and various extracts (well, coconut and hazelnut). I decided to just make a basic all-almond shell with hazelnut extract and fill with Nutella (I wasn't up for making buttercream). I used Doughmesstic's recipe found here but substituted the cherry flavoring for hazelnut extract. I also used jarred egg whites (eggology). I found the recipe to be very easy to follow and quickly had the batter ready to pipe out. I wasn't too successful at piping out the circles but figured for my first shot it wasn't too bad. After letting them sit for a bit I put them in the oven, turned on the oven light and patiently watched. From all the recipes I read, the foot on the macaron was very important. As they were baking Ryan came home and arrived to me dancing around singing "they have feet..they have feet...I did something right cause they have feet!!"

They turned out great for the first attempt. The tops were a little brown and I had some difficulty removing them from the parchment but all-in-all I counted it as a success and started planning the macaron flavors I would make next. That started off  the week's macaron frenzy...and I began to think "What's all the fuss about? I don't see why people say these are so finicky, they are actually really easy to make!"