So, I decided to tackle macaroons. Yes, I have heard horror stories, and rumours of thousands of attempts, failed, dried out, burnt. I did a bit of google research before I embarked, and wanted to try the French recipe. Failed miserably. But a few hours later, and a huge mountain of washed up bowls on the drying rack, and there is a plate of (if I say so myself) picture pretty macaroons perched on the side.
The first recipe I tried said it was 'fail safe'. Well, clearly not safe enough for me. The mixture was fairly standard to most of the French techniques I browsed before trying it out. I sifted the ground almonds and icing sugar. Whisked the egg white into stiff peaks then added the caster sugar. This recipe called for using egg white powder also, I thought this may aid the 'fail safe' bit. Mixing in the almond and sugar mix into the egg made an incredibly thick sticky paste that took so much elbow grease to get throw the piping bag and resulted in lumpy, rather unsightly little macaroons...even if they did taste good. But macaroons are supposed to be pretty!
Therefore I didn't waste time filling them, but tried again with a fantastic Italian recipe. The main difference between the Italian and the French is that you split the egg white into two bowls. One bowl gets whisked into soft peaks and then mixed into a caster sugar and water paste, heated to 240 F. This is then whisked for 15 minutes until cool, and forming stiff glossy peaks.
Then you incorporate the un-whisked bowl of egg white straight into the ground almonds and icing sugar (previously combined). This forms a paste, which you then fold into the glossy sugar meringue. It created a lovely glossy consistency that passed nicely through the pipping bag and settled into satisfying (almost) perfect rounds.
The recipe advised 15-25 minutes, my oven had them done in fifteen. They cooled quickly. They even had feet! With a glossy top, crisp outer shell and light chewy interior. I sandwiched them with a coffee cream...and spent the next few minutes making sure I captured this (hopefully not one hit) wonder.
Here is the link to this wonderful recipe!
Oh Wow! It worked for you! Good job!
ReplyDeletegonna try again tonight with this recipe!