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French Macarons
In the macarons above I filled them with plain buttercream frosting. However, I should try strawberry frosting next time!
FRENCH MACARONS (Yields about 15 Macarons)
Ingredients
-110g almond meal -100g powdered sugar -84g egg whites -80g sugar -liquid food coloring (optional) -buttercream of your choice
Instructions
First, line two pans with parchment paper.
Prepare your piping bag by fitting it with a wide, round tip and placing it in a glass. Fold the tip of the piping bag so that once it is filled, the batter does not slide out. Fold the edges of the piping bag outwards over the glass as well.
1. Grind together the almond meal and powdered sugar. Sift a few times until very powdery and fine. Discard any large bits of almond that do not go through the sieve. This step is important for smooth macaron surfaces.
2. With a hand-mixer on high speed, beat egg whites until foamy. Add the sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form. Add the liquid food colouring (I added some drops) and beat until incorporated. Ensure that even after adding the liquid, you still have stiff peaks.
3. Add the almond meal and powdered sugar to the meringue. This step is very crucial, called the macronage. Fold and smear with a spatula until the mixture is like lava and falls in ribbons. You have to obtain this consistency for a macaron batter. Once you've reached it, do not mix any further.
4. Fill your piping bag with the macaron batter. You might want to fill it with half of the batter then pipe the other half later.
5. Pipe mounds of batter on the lined baking pans, twirling and lifting off after each pipe. You can make the macarons any size you want, just make sure that as you pipe, you space the macarons out and pipe them round. Although macarons do not spread during baking, they spread during piping!
6. This is a very important step as well: drying. Today the weather was humid so I had to dry the piped macarons for 4 hours. Ensure that you dry them until they are dull and tacky. If you do not, feet will not develop however good you made the macaron batter.
Preheat your oven at this point to 150 degrees C.
7. Bake the macarons in the oven for about 13-15 minutes until they are slightly golden brown around the bottom edges. Let them cool completely.
8. Make the buttercream of your choice, transfer it to a piping bag with a plain tip, and pipe buttercream onto one side of the bottom of a macaron shell. Then gently press on another shell, creating a sandwiched cookie.
Enjoy!
Macaron recipe adapted from honeykki. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxSaqEbJh2s