Italian Macarons
I finally made macarons today! It was my first time trying macarons. I had thought that it was really really hard. And it was. :) But not quite as hard as I thought.
I just made these macarons because a lot of people were you know, crazy over it. These macarons came out really nice and cute, but I personally don't like macarons all that much. I'd prefer biscotti, scones, oatmeal cookies, and things like that. It's just my personal preference!
But for those who love macarons, this is a great recipe for you! These macarons are crispy on the outer shell, soft in the innner part, and the cream adds such a great flavour to these. And they developed "feet" pretty well, too.
Basic French Macarons
Ingredients
FOR THE MACARONS
-100g almond meal
-100g powdered sugar
-1 egg white
-1 egg white (yes, you need two egg whites for these macarons. Also, put each egg white in separate bowls.)
-25ml water
-100g white granulated sugar
FOR THE BUTTERCREAM
-100g room-temp. butter
-50g powdered sugar
-2 tbsp. heavy cream
Instructions
1. For the buttercream, put the butter, powdered sugar, and heavy cream into a bowl and beat for 5 min. with a hand mixer. Set aside.
2. For the macarons cookies, Place the almond meal and powdered sugar into a food processor. Grind them together just to ensure that there are no big lumps in the mixture. This step is crucial for smooth macarons.
3. Run the almond and powdered sugar mixture down a sieve into a separate bowl. Dump out the grains of almond meal that won't go down the sieve. Add one of the egg whites to the powders and mix throughly by doing a pressing & spreading motion (with a rubber spatula). The finished mixture should be a dough.
4. In another separate bowl, add the other egg white and beat with a hand-mixer for about 1 minute or until stiff peaks form.
5. In a saucepan, add the water and the sugar and boil over medium low heat. When it boils all over, heat it for 40-50 more seconds. Don't stir the liquid with a spatula. Just rotate your saucepan to distribute the sugar throughout the water. The mixture is done heating when it reaches 118 degrees C.
6. Grab the bowl with your stiff-peaked egg whites. Slowly, little by little, add the liquid from step 5 and beat the mixture with a hand-mixer while doing so. Beat until soft peaks form.
7. Now grab the bowl with the dough from step 3 and add the egg white mixture from step 6. Mix them together by folding them together and then doing the pressing and spreading motion. This step is very important. Do not undermix or overmix. Your mixture is done when you raise your spatula and the mixture oozes down slowly, stacking up like stairs as it falls back into the bowl.
8. Line two baking pans with parchment paper. Put the macaron mixture into a piping bag fitted with a plain, wide tip. Pipe 1 inch mounds onto the two pans. Make sure you space the macarons out!
9. Bang the pan down on the counter a few times to release air bubbles. Then let the macaron shells rest for 1 hour. When they are done resting, they shouldn't stick on your finger when you touch them. Preheat your oven at this point to 160 degrees Celsius.
10. Lower the oven temp. to 145 degrees Celsius and put one pan into the middle rack of your oven. Baking for 10-12 minutes. Let the macaron shells cool completely before attempting to remove them from the pan. Repeat this for the other baking pan filled with waiting macaron shells.
11. To assemble, put the buttercream into a piping bag and pipe about 1/2 inch mounds on the bottom side of one macaron shell. Place another macaron shell on top and press gently. Congratulations, you're done! Enjoy :)
Recipe adapted from a Korean cookbook named 진짜 기본 베이킹 책 by super recipes. http://www.super-recipe.co.kr/etc_06/etc_s4_01.php?inc=view&idx=130&tbname=notice