Basic Macarons

A few weeks ago my husband and I stumbled upon Macarons at our local cupcake shop while we were on a mini cupcake run. As if our cupcake addiction wasn't bad enough, we found our new guilty pleasure, macarons! It was like eating a little piece of heaven. After going back to the shop a few times to get more, I decided that I wanted to see if I could make them myself. While this batch did not turn out perfect, I did learn a few tips for next time.

Be warned: macarons are the kind of dessert that you need to plan for in advance.

  
Here are the steps:

First I separated the egg whites from the yolk, saving the egg white. If you want to keep the yolk, just look up a recipe that you can use them in, like creme brulee. 

Then I stored my egg whites in an air tight container at room temperature. You are supposed to age them for 24 hours, but I made the mistake of aging them for only about 5 hours.








While the egg whites were aging, I decided to make my own almond meal. If you want to make your own, check out my recipe here: almond meal. If you bought almond flour or almond meal from the store, go ahead and omit this step.

Once my egg whites were aged, I preheated the oven to 350 degrees.

Then I whisked my almond meal and powdered sugar together in a bowl and set it aside to be used later.

In your electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachement, add your egg whites with a dash of salt and mix on medium speed until they are foamy.

Now turn the speed up to high and gradually add in the granulated sugar and continue to mix until your egg whites form glossy stiff peaks like the picture below.

We are almost there! Now we get to add in the powdered sugar and almond meal/flour mix. Stir in slowly with a rubber spatula. This is the tricky part, you don't want to over or under stir your mixture.  Too much or too little and your macarons won't turn out right.  This is where I thought I went wrong, but after tasting them, they tasted very close to the ones at the bakery down the street. I thought I did not stir my batter enough which gave me a very fluffy macaron. In hindsight, I should have lifted my pan off the counter about four inches and dropped it several times to even out the batter and get rid of any air pockets.

Now put in oven at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. Since oven temperatures vary, you may want to keep your eye on the macarons so they don't burn.

Even though my first batch looks puffy, they tasted delightful.  The puffy ones were actually better than the "better looking" ones.








With the left over batter I decided to stir it a few more times to try and get a thinner consistency. I stirred waaaay too much and then next batch was too thin, but formed little feet! (Feet are a key feature for perfect macarons) That was exciting.

FEET!!!

Although this batch has "feet" on them, they didn't taste nearly as good as my puffy batch! I think somewhere in between would have been good.

Now you can put the filling in between the cookies. I chose a homemade buttercream frosting that is out of this world. If you want the recipe for my buttercream frosting click on the link. I even put a few slices of guava paste in the middle of some. This is another Cuban trick that I have learned from my husband and his family...guava paste is even delicious on saltines with a little cream cheese!

And there you have it! Hopefully next time they will look a little prettier :)

Ingredients:

          3 egg whites

          1/4 cup sugar

          1 cup almond meal

          1 1/4 cup powdered sugar

Filling:

          Buttercream frosting

          Nutella

          Jelly

          Anything you want!

Summary:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Crack your eggs and seperate the whites from the egg yolk. Put your egg whites in an airtight container and age on your counter (out of the sun) for 24 hours. Mix almond meal and powdered sugar in a bowl and set aside. Once your egg whites have aged, put them in your mixer and mix on low speed until they are foamy, then mix on medium high speed and slowly add your granulated sugar and continue beating until they reach a foamy stiff peaks. Next stir in your almond meal/powdered sugar mixture until it is fully stirred in. Fill a pastry bag and pour batter onto cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. Once cookies have cooled you can put whatever filling you like in them.

Enjoy!

With love!