Daring Bakers: French Macarons Disaster!
The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s ‘The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern’ as the challenge recipe.
French macarons are so pretty and so delicious that I’ve been thinking about baking some for several months and never actually had the courage to try… aren’t they supposed to be super difficult to make? If you don’t get every single step right, you fail. From the temperature of the egg whites to the oven temperature, via and exact amount of almond flour and the macarooning technique…
So when I saw that the October’s challenge was French macarons, I was very excited and completely terrified at the same time. I took Nicolas’ advice and read a lot about the perfect techniques before actually trying the recipe. I thought I was ready. I thought I would benefit from the beginner’s luck. But sadly, I didn’t.
2nd batch: they looked good once piped…
3 attempts. 15 egg whites, 75g of sugar, 675g of icing sugar and 570g of almond flour. But not one single French macarons. Not one single “foot” at the base of my cookies. The result is not that bad. I mean, I got really nice almond cookies. But they are not macarons and I’m kind of dissapointed. It’s not how I imagined my first time with macarons would be…
This morning I’ve come accross blog posts about this challenge, and I am a bit reassured to see that I am not the only one who had difficulties with this recipe. I might try again another time, with another recipe. Not now. We have eaten enough almond cookies for now. And I could be completely put off if I failed a fourth time in such a short period of time.
1st batch: almond cookies filled with chocolate spread, lemon curd and peanut butter
Claudia Fleming’s Recipe for Macarons
Ingredients
- 5 egg whites at room temperature
- 25g granulated sugar
- 190g almond flour
- 225g icing sugar
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.
2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.
5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).
6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.
3rd batch: lemon curd and chocolate buttercream
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