Macarons

Nothing was more of a pain in my keister than learning to make Macarons. There. I said it. But you should definitely still try to bake them 😉

When I first attempted to make macarons many years ago, I must have tried over a dozen times …and FAILED each and every single time. There was something about these things that just made me want to keep trying to make them perfect. It wasn’t until one Easter about 4 years ago that I finally got a recipe to work for me. The skies brightened up and I heard angels singing as I thanked the Lord that I FINALLY succeeded. That one time anyway. Then we went to Paris and I took a class at La Cuisine Paris and learned how to make macarons using an Italian Meringue method. And although the macarons were absolutely divine, the process was not for me.  So, I am sharing with you the method that I use at home and at the cake shop …the French meringue method.

Now, I’m not going to go into the science of making these things as you can go ahead a google all the hundreds of blogs that discuss “how to make the perfect macaron”. I’m just going to jump right in and show you how I make mine.

If you have a sensitivity to flour, these delectable cookies are perfect for you. Made with gluten-free ingredients! Just keep in mind that if you are making them at home and you have flour around, they are of course not 100% gluten free.

Looks simple right? Just 4 ingredients…not to scare you away, but such few ingredients had never given so much of a hard time. Fret not! The reason I am sharing this recipe with you is so you don’t actually have to bang your head against the wall anymore! This recipe is what I use for my clients’ dessert tables and for treats at home (Miss Kenna loves her macarons)!

Step 1. Separate your egg whites from the yolks (save yolks for yummy lemon curd). Many macaron makers will tell you that one of the secrets to the perfect macaron is to age the whites (keep them covered and refrigerated for several days after they have been separated). I have tried aging whites from 1 day to a week. It seems to me that it never really made a difference from when I used fresh, so I leave this step to you.

Step 2. Sift together the almond flour and powdered sugar. I tend to need to sift 2 to 3 times. You want to make sure that there are no lumps of almond flour in your cookie so you get that nice smooth top.

Step 3. With a stand mixer, begin whipping the egg whites at high speed. After about 30 seconds when the whites get frothy , slowly add the granulated sugar.

Step 4. This will take a few minutes, so hang tight. Mix on medium to high until you get stiff peak egg whites.

Step 5. I usually add my colour in at this point…and I stick to my ready available gel colours, but you can use powdered colour as well. The colour fades when they bake, so be sure to bump up the intensity just a teeny tiny bit here.

Step 6. Once you get the colour you want, remove the bowl from the mixer and prepare to put some muscle into this process. Pour half of your dry ingredients into the bowl and vigorously mix it with the egg whites with a rubber spatula. You are essentially deflating the meringue your stand mixer just took the time to make. “Macaronage” is the term you’ll read about in your macaron adventures…and some say this the make or break it part of your macaron making adventure.

Add the remaining dry ingredients and continue mixing until the mixture is combined, shiny, and “flows like lava”= slowly, not runny. If your mixture is runny, you have over mixed it and will just need to dry your shells for a longer period of time (they may also be more flat vs. puffy). Your mixture is under mixed , if you go to pipe your meringues and there is a peak left.

Step 100…or 7. Pour the batter in your piping bag with a round tip attached to it. I usually put the piping bag in a tall glass while I do this. It’s ever more tricky to do this while photographing!

Step 8…or 101. Pipe 1″ rounds (or your desired size of macarons) onto a baking pan lined with parchment or silicone baking mats (make sure they are grease free). I once made cookies the day before and didn’t wash the mats before baking macarons. Resulted in puffy macarons with no feet and a big undercooked mess and sobbing lady in the kitchen. NOT PRETTY. And it may or may not have been the time that I was making them for this particular blog post! Ha.

Again…very tricky to focus camera with one hand, press the shutter button, and pipe macarons in another.

Step 9 . Preheat your oven to 300 degF.

Step 10 . Let these beauties dry for at least 15 minutes. I have been impatient at times and don’t wait (I have been lucky some days and not so lucky other days). JUST WAIT. Walk away, do the dishes, sing a couple of songs, run around the block a couple times…let them sit. They are ready to go into the oven when the tops are no longer tacky. If there is one rule I follow for making macarons, it is this one. Just because the chances of them working out for me is 50/50 if I don’t wait.

Step 10A. Oops! Before you dry them, you can add wonderful things to the shells. Today, I added some lavender to half of the shells and crushed Smarties to the other half.

Step 11. Now, in MY oven, I bake these for 20 minutes. In our Giant convection oven at the shop it only takes 10 minutes. What I will say is that they are done when you see feet (crinkly texture on the bottom of your cookies) and when you  lift it off your parchment of silicone, the bottoms are smooth. What I have also learned is that if you over bake them, you can “age” the shells in a tightly sealed plastic container in the fridge or freezer. When you take them out to room temperature, they will have softened. It’s a strange magical quality. I  love it.

I filled the lavender macarons with some fresh lemon curd.

And for the smarties ones, I filled with some vanilla buttercream also with crushed smarties!

Yes, they can be a pain in the butt. Yes, some days you will be patting yourself on the back for a job well done and some days you will be victim to the ever popular macaron-mishaps. Dust yourself off and try again. These ridiculous little treats are worth it-most days!

Happy Macaroning, everyone!

And good luck you if you are just starting out on this journey 😉