Macarons

I don't think an eggless Macaron is possible. 

I'm still going to attempt a meringue using the chick pea juice method, but I can't imagine it will be strong enough to incorporate into a macaron. Either way, before attempting an eggless version, I thought it was wise to try the original version first.

These are notoriously tricky, but I had a blast. Here's a photo of my first batch, EVER.

They actually came out pretty well. The sizing wasn't as uniform as I would have liked, but they were nice and smooth, shiny and DELICIOUS. I decided to try again, mainly because I hated how this color combination turned out. I was aiming for a more soft, baby pink rather than this pepto bismol inspired look. Since I love dark chocolate, I decided to make a chocolate ganache. My husband described the look as hamburgeresque. Nope. Trying again. I assure you, these were delicious though. Ugly, but delicious. 

I definitely gave myself a blister on my pinky while folding the egg whites in. Clearly, I'm too pampered and not accustomed to hard labor...

Now, I once again have to give credit to Cupcake Jemma and her amazing tutorial on how to make the perfect macaron. She teams up with Dane Pemberton and together they walk you through a batch of macarons, using Italian Meringue. 

The most fun I had in making these was piping them out! I say fun, its definitely the trickiest bit but by my third batch in a single weekend, I felt like I was kind of getting the hang of it. Below are pictures of my first batch which honestly didn't go too badly either, I just had trouble keeping them uniformly sized, even with my silicone template.

Recipe:

205g Powdered Sugar

190g Ground Almond Flour (pulse in a food processor 10x and sift together with powdered sugar)

144g of room temperature egg whites, split into two batches of 72g each

Food Color Paste* use paste and not the liquid

190g of white sugar

60ml water

Cookie:

Take your sifted mixture of ground almond and icing sugar and mix in 72g of your egg whites. add food coloring paste at this stage. Cover and set aside.

Make your meringue by simmering your white sugar and water together until it reaches 110c, at this point keep simmering but turn on your stand mixer with a whisk attachment to high speed and start whipping your remaining 72g of egg white. Once your simmering simple syrup reaches 118c slowly pour this down the side of the bowl while your mixer is still on high. Whip the egg whites an additional 5 minutes or so until glossy and they flop over on the whisk like in the below picture. Isn't it dreamy and glossy? I love meringue now. Too bad I won't be making it much in my egg free bubble.

**you CAN use pasteurized egg whites in a carton. I bought organic ones from Trader Joe's for my third batch. However, they do take much longer to whip into a meringue and it helps to add 1 1/2 tsp of cream of tartar or splashes of lemon juice to help it along. Who knew? Pasteurizing does funny things.

Scoop a dab of your meringue into your almond mixture (which is like glue at this point) and mix it around to loosen it up a bit. Then add the rest of the meringue gently into your bowl and fold the meringue through. I heard Paul Hollywood's impersonation of Mary Berry saying "round the outside, through the middle!" over and over again as I was doing this. It takes a few minutes but you'll know it's ready when the mixture "ribbons" off of the spatula and gently melts back into the mass.

Prepare your baking tray with parchment paper and a template, or a pre-templated silicone version like I have above.

Then you add your batter all into a piping bag, fitted with a small nozzle, about 1cm. Holding the bag completely vertically over your tray you pipe a small amount into each circle on your template. Leave room for them to spread a little.

A great trick from Cupcake Jemma and Dane was after piping them all out, I slammed my trays on the table in an effort to knock out any air bubbles/bring the air bubbles to the surface-giving me a nice finish along the tops of the macarons. Jemma even does this crazy trick with a toothpick smoothing and popping any resisting bubbles just under the surface, but she makes it look easier than it is. You have to work quickly to smooth any imperfections because as soon as they start to form a little skin on the tops this technique won't work.

Preheat your oven to 325F-330F (my oven runs hot, so I use the 325)

Then you leave the tray alone for about a half an hour. It all depends on the weather/humidity but eventually when you gently touch the tops of the macarons they won't feel like wet batter, they'll be pretty dry to the touch.

These bake for about 12 minutes. I turned my trays all around switching top to middle/ back to front halfway through this bake at the 6 minute mark to ensure more even baking.

And the most exciting thing happened! They had FEET! I was so ecstatic.

After they cool, you just flip half of them over and pipe your filling onto them-then top with its cookie partner. 

So there you have it, my macaron journey. I did find the chocolate ganache I made to be a more stable/sturdy filling than the buttercream-but both were truly delicious. These cookies were so chewy and lovely, I became a fan for the first time.

Don't be afraid, if you love macarons-you can do this!