French Macarons (Daring Bakers’ Challenge)

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.

So, here’s the thing. I don’t really get the macaron craze. Cute little bakeries and pastry shops all over D.C. seem to sell them for an arm and a leg, much like the cupcake craze, and, much like cupcakes, I have no desire to pay an exorbitant price for them. And also much like cupcakes, I don’t even particularly like macarons. But the recipe sounded like a challenge, so I was in.

This was the very first thing I tackled after 3 weeks sick on the couch with swine flu and pneumonia. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t such a good plan; I was still feeling sick and had zero patience. To say I half-assed this recipe would be generous; really, at best, I quarter-assed this. All month, the Daring Bakers’ forum has been full of failed attempts… apparently, macarons are quite the tricky little beasts. And there I was, still not yet fully recovered, throwing my hands in the air and saying.. what the hell? Let’s give this a try.

All sorts of tips and tricks were shared in the forums in order to get this recipe to work. In my illness-induced annoyance state, I ignored all of them. Age your egg whites on the counter for three days, they said! I let mine sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before whipping them up. Be sure to sift your almond flour and sugar together three times so it is smooth! In my matchbox-sized kitchen, there is no room for non-essentials like sifters or mesh sieves, so not only did I not sift mine three times… I didn’t sift mine at all! Oh yes, there were LUMPS. And I narrowed my eyes and glared and told my macarons to suck it up and deal.

And deal they did. Much to my surprise, after reading about failure after failure, mine worked just fine. On the first try. With not-yet room temperature egg whites, non-sifted almond flour, and an oven that is notoriously off by quite a bit (but I don’t own an over thermometer, so I don’t know what that ‘bit’ is). MY biggest problem? Piping them out. I don’t own actual pastry bags (see reference to non-essential items for matchbox-sized kitchen) so I went with the good old snip off a corner of a ziploc bag. Nevermind that I even had circles drawn out underneath my parchment paper, I absolutely, positively, could not get that batter out in a circle… let alone in a same sized oval. Of course, this didn’t affect the quality of the cookie itself, but made sandwiching them up a bit difficult. Knowing my stomach was not yet up to par, I made these with my Husband’s tastes in mind – a simple dark chocolate ganache filling. I was thrilled that they turned out well; he was thrilled to eat them. All in all, a win-win situation!

See that ruffley edge along the base? Those are called macaron “feet” and are the defining characteristic of a macaron. Yeah, I didn’t know that either.

French Macarons

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 2 cups almond flour
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 5 egg whites, room temperature (-ish)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 200F.
2. Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl.
3. Beat the egg whites using a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
4. Sift (HA. suckers!) a third of the almond flour into the meringue and fold gently to combine. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Do not overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
5. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (or, for the truly frustrating experience, snip the end off a ziplog bag). Pipe one-inch sized mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
6. Bake the macarons for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375F. Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and back for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.