Wolf's Den

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.





I've always wanted to make French Macarons.I've long admired them and have several recipes stored in my favorites links. I just never got around to it, until now.

Talk about a challenge. Yikes.





I had great plans. Really I did. I wanted to do like, 6 different flavors. Then I ran out of time. Whoops. So gathered what I had on hand, and went from there.




So I mixed the powdered sugar and almond meal together. I really should have taken Audax's advice and ran the almond meal through a processor first, to get it as fine as possible. I dindn't though, but next time I definitely will.




So, I had aged the 5 egg whites for roughly 36 hours. I also added a teaspoon of powdered egg white , cause it's supposed to be a stabilizer for the whipped eggs. Next time, I'll do what others did and age the egg whites for longer. Maybe I'd get better results. Ooooo, foreboding... O.o




Whipped the egg whites to soft peaks. I swear they were soft peaks! Honest! The peaks folded right over on themselves in the bowl. So far, so good, right? Yeah, you tell yourself that, ok?




Turned the mixer back on, and added the granulated sugar. Then beat them into what I thought was stiff peaks. In hindsight, maybe I should have beat them a bit longer, they were a bit sad for peaks. Who knows though. There are SO MANY things that can apparently go wrong when making macarons. Honestly? I think I hit nearly all of them.}:P




So after the egg whites are beaten within an inch of their lives to soft peaks, I added about 1/3 of the powdered sugar/almond meal mix. And proceeded to fold it in. And fold and fold. I'm good at gently folding. Maybe next time I'll be harsher with it. Maybe it needed a good beating. Maybe it just wasn't my day.



Before I'd even started on the egg whites, I'd run some Lavender and powdered sugar through my coffe grinder, dumped it in a bowl after sifting out the big pieces, and dumped Matcha (Green Tea powder) into another bowl, then set them aside for a minute or so. When I was ready, I split the macaron batter more or less evenly into three portions.





I used Wilton's Icing Gel colors to color my macarons. JUST barely the tip of a butter knife is all it takes with this stuff. It's that good. The bottom one, I added blueberry juice as well as the blue gel coloring. I also added a bit more almond meal and powdered sugar to balance out the added liquid. It sort of worked, I guess. Maybe.



Aren't those wonderful colors? I thought so too. Enjoy, cause 2 of them don't survive too well.




I need to work on my circles, trust me. Very very actually came out in neat circles. These were a few of them. Also? Baking stones? Not such a good idea.}:/ Lesson learned there.



First baking, as per the provided recipe- WHICH incidentally, I followed nearly exactly- set the shells and caused the macarons to spread a bit more. Hrm. Ok, moving right along...




Second baking, they puffed up a wee bit. Nowhere NEAR as nice as these. Or these. And don't get me started about these. And THIS, oh my gods.

Ahem. Sorry.



I did get feet! They may be small, but they are definitely feet! Whee! And the shells WERE gorgeous- shiney, smooth... until I went to remove them from the baking stones. The Matcha ones weren't too bad, as far as cracking goes, generally it stayed to the edges. But the Lavender? Ummm...



Yeah. We won't talk about them anymore, ok? When they say use parchment paper, USE PARCHMENT PAPER. Baking stones alone really don't workj well. Especially if you completely cool the macarons on them.}:(

So with the Blueberry ones, I used parchment paper. And regular cookie sheets. Only, I totally missed where you flip the sheet over and stack two together. Totally, utterly missed it.



My Blueberry macarons amoeba'd. Literally. They were round when I stuck them in the oven, I swear.



Amoebas. With feet. LOL. (A fellow Daring Baker says they look like nuggets of turquoise, hee.)

Ok then. I quit that night and filled them the next day. I made a simple Bittersweet Dark Chocolate Ganache. I had PLANS, I tell you. Flavored ganaches, the whole nine yards. Yeah, that didn't happen either. *sigh*

I will say, that despite the obvious FAIL (maybe I over beat the egg whites? Maybe I underbeat? Maybe my oven hates me? Maybe macarons are just not my thing? Who knows.), that I did enjoy at least EATING these. They are good. The ganache offsets the sweetness just enough to create the perfect balance. Can't taste the Blueberry, unfortunately. The Matcha really came through with it's earthy smokiness. The Lavender though, next time I'll use less. All I could taste WAS the Lavender.}:/

It's is really amazing what plating can do though.}:P







Thanks, Ami, for a truly challenging Challenge! Will I try these again? Yes, eventually.}:P Maybe next time, I'll succeed completely.


And OH!!! You all really need to check these ones out!

THE RECIPE AS PROVIDED-

Preparation time: Not taking into account the amount of time it takes for you to bring your egg whites to room temperature, the whole baking process, including making the batter, piping and baking will probably take you about an hour to an hour and a half. How long it takes to make your filling is dependent on what you choose to make.

Actual baking time: 12 minutes total, plus a few minutes to get your oven from 200°F to 375°F.

Equipment required:
• Electric mixer, preferably a stand mixer with a whisk attachment
• Rubber spatula
• Baking sheets
• Parchment paper or nonstick liners
• Pastry bag (can be disposable)
• Plain half-inch pastry bag tip
• Sifter or sieve
• If you don’t have a pastry bag and/or tips, you can use a Ziploc bag with the corner snipped off
• Oven
• Cooling rack
• Thin-bladed spatula for removing the macaroons from the baking sheets
• Food processor or nut grinder, if grinding your own nuts (ouch!)

Ingredients
Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)
Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)
Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)
Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.
2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.
5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).
6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.

Yield: 10 dozen. Ami's note: My yield was much smaller than this. I produced about two dozen filled macaroons.

Additional Information:

David Lebovitz breaks it down: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2008/09/making_french_macarons.htm...
More macaroon 411: http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/10/introduction-to-french-macarons.html
Get inspired by our own Tartlette!: http://www.mytartelette.com/search/label/macarons
Go behind the scenes of Paulette: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXIvX0-CEu0
Watch a pro pipe macaroons: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_RfiFoWZKQ&feature=related
Beating egg whites: http://www.glutenfreecookingschool.com/archives/egg-series-no-1-how-to-b...