As you may have noticed, I’ve gone a little crazy over macarons. Over the past week and a half, I’ve made 7 batches of these deliciously light, slightly crisp, slightly creamy cookie sandwiches that somehow melt like butter in your mouth, and I’ve learned a LOT along the way.
I’ve literally been making macarons day and night, and even at 2 a.m., as the case was a few nights ago. I kept failing time after time at the beginning. I mean, the taste was sensational, it’s just the cookies were either cracked, full of air, or like the other day’s disaster, hard as rocks. Karen the Cat treated them like super fun toys, rather than cookies. That was a bad sign. I cried, locked myself in the closet and felt really pitifully sorry for myself.
After doing a SIGNIFICANT amount of research and trial and error, I finally started to figure it out. The first batch of “good” macarons were mint-chocolate. The cookies had that perfect ratio of crunch to chew, and everyone loved them.
But now that I had the itch, I couldn’t quit. Next, I decided to do a flavor combo that I simply adore: Lemon + Raspberry. I created a lemon cookie and used some deliciously tart and semi-sweet organic raspberry preserves as the filling. SO refreshing and delicious!
For the next flavor combo, I went with a vanilla cookie and used Nutella as the filling. These were a huge hit with my friends at Monday’s Girl’s Night.
Then, to round out my macaron madness, I created a cinnamon honey cream macaron, and these might just be my favorites.
The cinnamon cookies were a perfect platform for the cinnamon honey cream that I made from my mom’s suggestion of mixing up some cinnamon honey and some whipped cream cheese. They were just simply divine.
Like I said before, I learned a lot on my macaron making journey, and I’d like to share some of the most important things with you.
Lesson #1 – Don’t skip the sifting/food processor when it comes to your dry ingredients. I don’t know exactly how it helped, but once I really focused on making sure my dry ingredients were smooth and not at all chunky, things started looking up for me.
Lesson #2 – Aged Eggs or fresh eggs… it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. I tried using both, and it didn’t really affect my final product. So don’t stress.
Lesson #3 – Whip those egg whites. Whip em good. Room temperature or cold, old or fresh – Like I said, don’t discriminate. Think shaving cream.
Lesson #4 – The final batter should be like molten lava in the way it moves. Fold the dry ingredients into the meringue until it all comes together and flows slowly like molten lava. I made the mistakes of not folding enough, fearing that I’d break the meringue. As it happens, breaking the meringue is what is supposed to happen. The batter should be smooth and shiny, but not even remotely runny.
Lesson #5 – Piping circles isn’t as hard as it sounds. Just hover the tip of your bag above the prepared baking sheet and squeeze until the batter reaches the tip, then immediately stop squeezing. If your discs have tips that don’t settle, your batter isn’t ready. You need to keep folding it until the discs settle into flat circles. You don’t want tips like Hershey’s Kisses. To test, just spoon your batter on the baking sheet before putting it into the pastry bag, and if it settles, then continue forth. If not, keep folding.
What flavors will come next? I think a coffee and cream batch is on the horizon. What would your ideal macaron flavor be?
- 1 cup of powdered sugar
- 1/2 cup almond meal
- pinch of salt
- (cocoa powder if you desire chocolate cookies)
- 2 egg whites
- 3 tablespoons of fine sugar
- flavor extracts
- food coloring
- Stand or Hand mixer
- Sifter or Food processor
- Rubber spatulas
- Parchment paper or silpat liner
- Pastry bag with round tip or ziplock bag with a tip cut off
- Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper, set aside.
- In a medium bowl sift together powered almond meal, powdered sugar and if you wanted chocolate cookies, add cocoa powder. Set aside. (If you don’t have a sifter, use a food processor to grind/mix your sugar/almond/salt)
- If you have a stand mixer: In a stand mixer, whisk egg whites at medium-low speed. Once the egg whites begin to foam, slowly sprinkle in granulated sugar. Slowly increase speed to medium-high and beat until a firm meringue forms. Once you have stiff, glossy peaks, beat in your food coloring(s) & extract(s).
- If you don’t have a stand mixer: Use a hand mixer and do the same things as in step 3.
- Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in dry ingredients into meringue, until combined. You will have to break meringue to do this, but do not over stir. There’s a fine line. Fold dry ingredients into meringue until just combined. Transfer mixture to a pastry bag with a plain round tip. If you don’t have a pastry bag, use a ziplock bag, and cut the tip off on one end and use like a pastry bag.
- Pipe 1 inch rounds onto prepared baking sheets, leaving an inch between macarons to allow batter to spread. Once all macarons have been piped, pick up baking sheet with both hands and tap it firmly on counter several times. This will remove any air bubbles.
- Let macarons sit for 30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on humidity levels. The macarons are ready to bake when tops are no longer sticky to touch, and have formed a shell.
- Once macarons are dry to the touch, preheat oven to 315°F; once up to temperature, bake both trays at same time for 16-18 minutes, rotating trays once. KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR COOKIES. 315 was perfect for me, but ovens vary... Let macarons cool completely on parchment paper or silpat liner before removing.
- I found disposable pastry bags & metal tips in the baking isle at my local HEB. They made my life a LOT easier, so I'd recommend getting these. It was something like $5 or $6 for 24 bags.
- For fillings, you can use icing (3 oz cream cheese, softened, 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract -- cream the butter and cream cheese together. Add vanilla. Slowly add the sugar. Voila!), jams, jellies, preserves, peanut butter, creams, honey, etc. The world is your oyster. Just pick flavor combos that you like, and experiment!
- Just wait for the cookies to cool, find two that are the same size, pipe or spread your filling of choice on one, and sandwich the two together.
- Fini!
