I can barely ice a cake smooth or pipe a buttercream rose and yet I am attempting to make macarons. I've never had a macaron and I've never made a macaron. But they made it to my baking 'bucket list' a few months ago when I came across these gorgeous tiffany blue macarons.
So when Lindsay from Love and Olive Oil announced her April Kitchen Challenge was to make macarons, it seemed like a great idea to give them a try now. Why wait till later?? Little did I know!
I jumped into the literature of macarons not knowing anything about what it takes to make a macaron. A common theme that was immediately clear was that making macarons is an extremely difficult task. Second, there are lots of different schools of thoughts about how to make a successful batch of macarons. A very 'superstitious' ritual if I must say.
I started off with Brave Tart, as Lindsay suggested, and she has several great posts on all you need to know about macaroons. I learned almost everything from handling meringue to macaronage on her blog.
Most macaron recipes call for a food scale and since I wasn't about to buy one just yet, I had to look for a recipe that did not require a scale. I adapted a recipe from Sprinkle Bakes for the ingredients but I followed the instructions from Bravetart's macarons. Thanks to her mythbuster article, I was able to go into this project prepared.
Making macarons starts with whipping up egg whites and sugar to make a stable meringue. Then sifting together almond flour and powdered sugar for the dry ingredients. The most crucial stage is folding the dry ingredients into the meringue, the process of macaronage, which deflates the meringue. With proper macaronage you should have a ribbon-like mixture that can hold up to piping and maintain its shape. The batter is piped onto parchment paper in 11/2 inch circles, given a solid tap on a counter and baked for 10-15 minutes depending on your oven temperature. Sounds simple enough right??
Yeah, it's not. It took three batches. The first batch failed period. The second batch (pictured in cream) were 'oval' not circular and they baked somewhat crooked. The third batch (pink) turned out circular and much better. However, they still baked crooked...the shells were falling off. After three batches, my macarons were not perfect but that is ok. I did not expect to get perfect cafe-quality macarons on my first try. But with practice and good techniques I'll make close to perfect macarons one day.
It was great fun to jump into this project and not knowing much about macarons or how to make them. Thanks to Lindsay for inspiring this bold step. Now I'm looking forward to the next challenge she has in store. If you have not checked out her blog, do so NOW! It's amazing.
I have more macarons to experiment with and they might just show up on a certain dessert table I'm planning for an upcoming shower :)
