Well let me confess two things before we even get into the recipe. I have never tasted french macrons and with my first attempt I failed at getting my egg whites whipped , nevertheless ending up making cupcake for which you can find the recipe here. There can not be a complete failure with any recipe if you backout at the correct step and take another route to make something else .
Well though I have never tasted any macrons I am always intrigued by them every time I see them over a counter in a bakery shop. They look too pretty and colorful to me to be eaten-up! Well why would you take a bite into those pretty looking delicacies when the look at them can take you to the world of fantasy. Anyways, coming the second confession, I have never had any chance of whipping an egg earlier and when I started for making the meringue little did I know there is so much of science involved in getting that perfect glossy whipped eggs. There not complicated though to get if you can take care of a few things like do not let even a strand of egg yolks left in egg whites, they will not like it and just refuse to whip . And make sure your glass bowl and whipping blades are super clean without a trace of oil and grease. I did not follow these two basics and failed at my first attempt, but second time it came out so easy that in 5 minutes I got the best meringue .
Now this is first time I tried these little wonderful cookies and though they might not be perfect ones but I fell proud that I could get them close enough and this has boosted my confidence to try them again sooner with all lessons learnt.
Coming the list of ingredients, it is a handful of simple ingredients but its more of the technique which make the entire process a little time consuming. while most of the recipes call for almond meal
which is hard to get in India and even if you get one its priced at 1400 bucks for 500 grams, I chose to ground my almonds fine. I strained them with a sieve to get rid of all granules left .
Ingredients:
2 egg whites
3/4 cup almond flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tablespoons vanilla essence
2 tablespoon sugar
Recipe:
Egg whites should be at room temperature so make sure you take eggs out from refrigerator a couple of hours earlier, or just leave them in warm water for 10 minutes. Grind 3/4 cup almonds in a food processor to fine powder. Add the powdered sugar and strain them using a sieve, take the remaining mixture and grind again, sieve. At last there would be a tablespoon of coarse almond bits left, discard them. Take the egg whites a clean glass bowl. Start whisking at low speed using a hand blender. Once its starts get foamy add 1/2 table spoon of sugar. It will start to get creamy, start some more sugar and whip at a higher speed, at this time it will become light and start forming peaks like whipping cream. Add remaining sugar. Whip it till it make peaks. This would take around 5 minutes. You will know when to stop when it starts getting firms non dropping peaks. At this point add vanilla essence, I do not recommend using essence and prefers pure extract but I had pure vanilla paste which a little grainy and will not blend well here, but try to use pure vanilla extract if you can. At this time the whipped egg would turn glossy and smooth, this is called as Meringue and is the base of macrons.
Gently fold in half of dry ingredient mix into egg white and mix using a spatula without punching the air too much. Add remaining almond flour sugar mixture too and fold in together.
Consistency should be that of molten lava but to too runny.
Take a piping bag or a plastic cover and fill the batter, seal the top and make a small cut at bottom.
I did not have parchment paper but that works best for these cookies as they tend to stick. I used greased aluminium foil. Pour through the icing bag in a shape of coin, try to make all of same size and keep a distance of 1 inch as they expand. After all are done, hold the tray and pat it on counter top so cookies settle down, going a little flat. Leave them to dry up for around 15-20 minutes till they dry up on top and stop sticking.
Preheat oven to 180 C and bake for 150C for 10 minutes. I baked mine at 180 C so they turned a little brown. They will be very fragile when hot so leave them to cool down completely before you try to remove them.
A couple of things learnt from the first attempt are to put the batter a little high as they become too thin after being baked and too bake at lower temperature. I did not make the filling as they were too thin and tasted awesome as it is but next time I would make with filling.
Stay tuned for the recipe.
Gently fold in half of dry ingredient mix into egg white and mix using a spatula without punching the air too much. Add remaining almond flour sugar mixture too and fold in together.
Consistency should be that of molten lava but to too runny.
Take a piping bag or a plastic cover and fill the batter, seal the top and make a small cut at bottom.
I did not have parchment paper but that works best for these cookies as they tend to stick. I used greased aluminium foil. Pour through the icing bag in a shape of coin, try to make all of same size and keep a distance of 1 inch as they expand. After all are done, hold the tray and pat it on counter top so cookies settle down, going a little flat. Leave them to dry up for around 15-20 minutes till they dry up on top and stop sticking.
Preheat oven to 180 C and bake for 150C for 10 minutes. I baked mine at 180 C so they turned a little brown. They will be very fragile when hot so leave them to cool down completely before you try to remove them.
A couple of things learnt from the first attempt are to put the batter a little high as they become too thin after being baked and too bake at lower temperature. I did not make the filling as they were too thin and tasted awesome as it is but next time I would make with filling.
Stay tuned for the recipe.
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