French Macarons

Finally, on an implusive thought just two days back, I decided to try my hands on the ever elusive, tricky, elegant, classy French macarons 🙂 Honestly speaking, I had never given much thought about baking these beauties and was not sure how folks at home would take it. But dunno how and why, suddenly as I was going through some you tube videos and blogs, I thought why not try these macarons? And as I always say, you got to try everything at least once, isn’t it? So the first step was to get an approval from my little one 🙂 She was quite excited and immediately told me that I should surely try it and that she was sure that I would do a good job. I then didn’t need any further motivation. I quickly searched many recipes on the internet and saw a couple of videos on YouTube. Tried to understand the Dos and Don’ts and thus made myself ready for my maiden macaron venture 🙂

After discussing with Neha, we decided to use some cocoa powder along with almond flour to mask the eggy smell if any. One reason that I had never tried it before was “almond flour”. I had found it too expensive and the thought of wasting it over a failed attempt would be really sad. But then I realised that one can make this flour at home very easily and that way it would be much cheaper too. Can you believe that from 100 grams of almonds, I got 89 grams of almond flour, isn’t that super exciting and much cheaper than buying ready made almond flour? So made these flour ready on Sunday afternoon and braced myself to bake macarons on Monday. We had planned to take a printout of macarons template (abundantly available on the internet) and use it to pipe out the shells. But due to some issues, I couldn’t take a printout and ended up drawing circles on an A4 sheet and used it below the parchment paper while piping.

Initially we had planned to fill these with chocolate ganache, but then I completely forgot to buy fresh cream and so finally we decided to fill them with buttercream. I had never worked with buttercream before and was really wanting to try it atleast once. But honestly, neither me nor Neha liked the taste of buttercream much. We found it too sweet and very heavy.  I filled a few of the macarons shells with butterscotch sauce and found it to pair very well with the light chocolate flavoured macarons. Please read the Notes section really well before you attempt to try these. Believe me, it is not very difficult to make these and once you really know the basics right, use good quality parchment paper and follow the procedure properly, you can bake really good ones with proper feet, crispy exterior and a slightly chewy interior 🙂 Don’t get intimidated by failures, just be patient, follow the recipe, observe the techniques and you are sure to succeed 🙂

Ingredients:

• Almond flour 65 gm
• Cocoa powder 5 gm
• Vanilla bean powder 1/4 tsp
• Powdered sugar 100 gm
• Egg whites 2 (59 gm)
• Granulated sugar 50 gm
• Vinegar 1/4 tsp

Method:

• Mix the almond flour, cocoa powder, vanilla bean powder and powdered sugar and pulse it in a mixer for few seconds.
• Sieve this mixture 2-3 times and keep it aside.
• Take a clean, dry abd grease free mixing bowl and add 2 egg whites to it.
• Beat it at a low speed using an electric beater and add vinegar to it and beat again.
• Now slowly add the granulated sugar and beat the egg whites till you get stiff peaks. This will take few minutes.
• Now slowly add the dry ingredients to the egg whites and fold it gently using a spatula. Mix till there are no dry particles left and the batter flows in a ribbon like consistency. Do not overmix.
• Take a baking tray and line it with a parchment paper. Place the template below the parchment paper.
• Transfer the batter into a piping bag and snip at the tip or you can use a small round nozzle.
• Pipe out the batter on the parchment paper into small circles.
• Tap the tray on the counter few times to remove the air bubbles. Poke the surface with a toothpick to remove extra bubbles.

• Allow the piped shells to rest on the counter for 40-45 minutes or more till the surface looks dry and it doesn’t stick to your hands on touching.
• Meanwhile preheat the oven at 150-160 degree Celsius for atleast 10-15 minutes.
• Bake the shells for 13-15 minutes or till it looks done.
• Remove tbe tray from the oven and slowly slide the parchment paper onto the counter and cool.

• Select same size shells and fill with chocolate ganache or vanilla buttercream or strawberry butter cream or any other filling of your choice.
• Just fill a piping bag with the desired filling and squeeze it on the reverse side of a shell and cover it with another shell. Repeat with the other shells.
• You can either eat it immediately or refrigerate and let the filling set first and then devour these delightful beauties 🙂

Notes:

• To make the almond flour, measure around 100 grams of almonds. Blanch it in boiling water for exactly 30 seconds and then drain it using a strainer. Pour cold water on the strainer and cool them. Now you can remove the peel very easily by simply squeezing it between your fingers. Dry it on a clean kitchen towel for few minutes. Pulse it in a dry mixer jar and sieve it to remove the bigger almond pieces. Pulse it again. I got 89 grams of almond flour with 100 grams of whole almonds. You can use the left out bigger lumps in cookies or cakes or eat it there and then 🙂
• Make sure the almond flour and powdered sugar are sieved well.
• Use a clean and oil free bowl for beating egg whites. Better to use a glass bowl. Wipe the bowl with a dry issue and make sure there are no traces of oil in the bowl.
• Use eggs at room temperature. Do not mix the egg whites and yolk.
• You can use cream of tartar or vinegar or lime juice while beating egg whites. I have used vinegar.
• Beat into stiff peaks.
• The batter should be mixed well till it can flow in ribbon like consistency.
• Remove air bubbles to prevent the shells from cracking.
• Allow the shells to dry properly before you bake them. This helps for proper feet development.
• Do not bake at high temperature.
• Use good quality parchment paper.
• Remember to remove the macaron template before you put the tray in the oven.
• I have read that these macarons do not a long shelf life. 3-4 days max, though this being my first experience, I have not much idea. Keep it refrigerated to last longer.
• I shall surely try the eggless version using aquafaba and share my experience 🙂