It was Christmas Eve day and I decided to have
a little fun in the kitchen, trying to make
French Macarons
for the first time since our class in Paris
over a year ago.
I am sure I was inspired by our trip to Paris and Germany
where we taste tested many of them.
I had the morning free, and I had purchased the
almond flour some time before from Costco,
where it is more reasonably priced than at
the grocery store, so I decided to give it a try.
(I admit I had been a bit of a chicken, even though
we had all successfully made them in class.)
Click here for the tutorial, giving step by
step instructions.
I wanted to make more than one color,
and more than one flavor, so I deviated
from the above tutorial slightly, in
that I folded the egg white meringue in
before adding any coloring, then I divided
the batter into three bowls. Color was added
to the bowls, and the final 50 stirs were done
after coloring was added. For the pink I used
a powdered food coloring that I had purchased
in Paris at our class, for the green I used gel
food coloring (Americolor in a squeeze bottle - my
personal preference as it doesn't dry out), and
for the white, I left it uncolored. I felt the gel
food coloring worked just as well as the powdered,
and it is more readily available.
Then I made one batch of buttercream frosting
and divided it into four bowls, one vanilla,
using clear vanilla flavoring, one peppermint, using
creme de menthe flavoring, one key lime, and one almond.
The macarons were decorated prior to baking. I only had
one failure, and that was that I sprinkled some crushed
peppermint candy on top of the unbaked macarons,
and there was a chemical reaction while baking that
caused the area where I sprinkled the candy on to
rise up and create an ugly mound - (think surface of
the moon!) so those were taste
testers for hubby!
The almond was generally everyone's favorite,
but I loved all four flavors.
Refrigerate them and they are even better the next day.
They were a lovely addition to our Christmas Eve
meal and we had some left for the next day.
The recipe made around 40 - 45.
And yes, I did measure everything out on my
kitchen scale in grams, and that was easy.
I had also purchased a special silpat baking liner
in Paris that had macaron circles on it, but I
felt they were a little close and some ended up
touching as they baked. I also had some new
silpat type liners that I had purchased from
Costco. My old worn, original Silpat brand
worked the best, as they all stuck a little to the
new sheets, but on my old Silpat they came right
off. I don't know if that was because that was
more seasoned (if that happens with a Silpat,)
or if it was because it was a true Silpat liner,
but it definitely was the best.
So glad I gave them a try. We will be making a lot
more of these, now that I feel confident to do them,
and I already have people asking me to teach them.
We will have to do a ladies' lunch and teach
French Macarons.
