I was on the fence about posting this ‘experiment in the kitchen’. I’ve been wanting to learn how to make macarons for quite some time now and to be honest I rarely get nervous in the kitchen. Making macarons had me just petrified. So petrified that I made several critical errors. I was very thankful that I decided to make a very small batch for my first time.
Mistake #1: I decided to make a chocolate macaron on first go. I’m not very good at piping them yet. They looked like poo and we all had a good laugh.
Mistake #2: Assuming the recipe I used made 15 HALVES of the macarons. Not 15 whole macarons. duh, why would it make an odd number *facepalm*
I have no macaron experience to compare this one to, but the meringue was definitely at the hard peak stage and I really tried to fold the dry ingredients in as best I could. Since this recipe is so small (and I stuffed it up to make even less) I decided not to bother with making a butter cream for the inside but used Dulche de Leche spread instead.
I basically followed this recipe which is supposed to make 15 macarons OR 30 half macarons!
- 110g icing sugar
- 60g almond meal
- 60g egg whites, aged + 5g additional
- 40g caster sugar
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder
- tiny bit of brown colouring gel
On two sheets of parchment, draw 30 4cm diameter circles. Flip paper over onto cookie sheet. Sift the icing sugar, almond meal and cocoa powder together in a bowl. Then beat the egg whites in the mixer on high for 30 seconds and gradually added the caster sugar. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks formed (you can turn the bowl upside down). Add a bit of brown colouring gel (if using). For the mixture, add half of the dry ingredients to the meringue and fold them together. Then add the remainder of the dry ingredients and fold again. Put it all into a piping bag and pipe the mixture onto the parchment paper using the drawn circles as a guideline.
Tap cookie sheet to get rid of air bubbles, then let sit for an hour.
Preheat oven to 285 F. When ready, bake the macarons for 20-25 minutes.
I loosely based this kitchen experiment on these lovely macarons by Confessions of a Glutton but as you can see hers are much nicer and more professional looking than mine.
Despite having the proper texture, my macarons still looked ‘lumpy’. I asked my farmers’ market friend, David of Yum Bakery what he did with the almond meal. Turns out he does give it a whirl in the food processor for a bit just to make sure it is super fine. This is a superb tip that I shall try out the next time I make macarons.
These are BEAUTIFUL!! You are being too hard on yourself!! I am contemplating making French macaroons for Easter this year– but I’m not sure if I will be too frustrated by the process. Wish me luck… thanks for experimenting for me 🙂
Use your baking instincts and you’ll do fine! One thing I definitely learned is that the almond flour we have in North America is not fine enough….there are some nice macaron pointers in this month’s Martha Stewart mag. She recommends processing them in the food processor, passing them through a sieve, reprocessing as needed until they all pass through easily. I bought a huge bag of Almond meal at costco the other day…I think I’m almost ready to give them another go too! Any particular flavours you would like to try out? Good Luck!
The Martha Stewart issue was my inspiration…. The colors were so beautiful!!
Thank you for doing some of the legwork for me– I could see myself skipping some of the prep to make the almond meal more fine! 🙂
This looks so delicious, I wish I could pick it and eat it right away. Thanks for stopping by my favourite pastime. Have a great weekend!
Haha well done for a first go! My first ever attempt didnt even grow feet.
I’ve done some research and the lumpiness is also because Australian almond meal is quite wet; next time spread out the almond meal on a tray and dry in a preheated 160 oven for 10minutes or so before letting it cool and sifting it with the icing sugar. Also, if you fold the macaron mixture a little more before piping it will make it smoother.
Don’t be deterred! Practice makes perfect. And the attempts are always tasty 😉
Yeah, I was pretty happy when they ‘grew feet’. I was sitting in front of the oven and my daughter asked me what I was doing…and I replied ‘waiting for them to grow feet’ and she just shook her head and went back upstairs…I did do a happy dance when it finally happened.
I am in Canada…but I did think the Almond Meal was indeed the culprit and also learning how much to fold the mixture as well.
I used to live in Australia and miss it terribly!
Ah yes I realised you were in Canada after I read your About Me… I’ve seen some American/British recipes and I’ve seen them use ‘Almond Flour’, which is apparently finer; something that we don’t have here but you might have over there? Worth checking it out 🙂