Macarons

Macarons

It's Daring Bakers time again and this month we have Macarons! I've always admired these little darlings and now I've made some myself. I'm so hooked that I can't wait to experiment with different flavour combinations.

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.

According to Ami.....
"In the United States, the term macaroon generally refers to a cookie made primarily of coconut. But European macaroons are based on either ground almonds or almond paste, combined with sugar and egg whites. The texture can run from chewy, crunchy or a combination of the two. Frequently, two macaroons are sandwiched together with ganache, buttercream or jam, which can cause the cookies to become more chewy. The flavor possibilities and combinations are nigh endless, allowing infinitely customizable permutations."

I chose to make chocolate macarons with a creamy bittersweet chocolate ganache center. I also added a bit more almond to the batter to make them stiffer. This way I was able to use a star tip to create the spiderweb-like pattern on the cookie. I did this to celebrate this week's #GreatHallowTweet event leading up to Halloween. (see the post below for more details)

To birds with one stone.....yeah, I'm clever like that. :)

Macarons
Recipe by Claudia Fleming

Makes about 24 cookies

Ingredients:
Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)
Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)
Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)
Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)
2 Tablespoons of dutch cocoa powder (my addition)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar, almond flour and cocoa powder 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.

38 comments:

RJ Flamingo said...

Oh, you are a clever girl! You even messed around with the recipe and piping, and *still* got feet! Jealous!

Julie @ Willow Bird Baking said...

Love that fancy piping!

Wolf said...

Pretty darn spiffy!

Wic said...

love how you worked the challenge. adore your Macaroons.

Loie said...

They look great! I love the pattern on your macarons :)

Jenny said...

Wow, that's some fancy piping and beautiful looking macarons! We had a big fail with the challenge recipe, so I'm very impressed that you could fiddle with the amounts and with the piping and still get feet! Great job!

Barry C. Parsons said...

Oh my I NEED these now! I ove macaroons! Gonna have to try this one!

Kris Ngoei said...

Love the spider-look macarons. One of a kind :-)

Regards
Kris

Pilar - Lechuza said...

I still don't dare to make macarons myself. Yours look delicious!!
regards

Esther said...

I love the spider web effect so a good idea!

Barbara Bakes said...

Yours are the first macs I've seen with a pattern. Nice job!

Rosa's Yummy Yums said...

They are so pretty! Very well done!

Cheers,

Rosa

Tracy said...

Gorgeous, love the pattern on top!

Unknown said...

I love the cute spider effect too! No one else seems to have done it, or if they tried I haven't seen an effective version till yours :) very pretty!

A said...

haha! such a daring new take on the macaron! bravo :)

Jo said...

Love your macarons and such an ingenious idea to celebrate Halloween as well. Great job!

Muneeba said...

Wow, yours look so decadent ... and completely different from regular macarons .. excellent job!

Maria said...

Wow, how fun! I love your macarons!

Judy@nofearentertaining said...

Great job on the challenge and today's #greatHallowTweet entry! Love the look of your macarons!

Audax said...

I loce how you piped the macaron shells I have never seen anything like it well done they look smashing and the flavour sounds delicious. Cheers from Audax in Australia.

glamah16 said...

Well look at you! Genious piping skills!Great Job.

Lauren said...

Love the piping change! It looks meant to be & suitably spooky =D.

Anonymous said...

Looove Halloween - such cute macs!

Anonymous said...

You rock! I love what you did with the macarons. Like you, now that I know how easy they are I can't wait to make more.

maybelle's mom said...

BRILLIANT. I love how lovely they are.

Karen | Citrus and Candy said...

Gorgeous. Just lovely :)

Sue said...

These look SO GOOD! LOVE the pattern! :)

lettergirl said...

These look incredible! Hope you are feeling better soon!

Mini Baker said...

haha I love your headline: "I hope you're hungry!" WHY YES I AM! I'm so excited I found your blog! You've got some amazing recipes. Your chocolate eclairs are eyeing me down hehe :)
-Mini Baker

Joy said...

I'm so enamored with your macaron's shape! They're gorgeous.

Anonymous said...

I am confused as to how you were able to pipe these and keep the star pattern while getting feet. Iwould think that they would be to stiff for that. Great work!!

Juliana said...

Oh! Your macarons look so cute, very creative...I bet you that they are really yummie :-)

PAM said...

Such a great idea to pipe them out with a star tip and get that cool pattern. Very clever!!

Lori said...

Nice job. I would have been so scared that they wouldnt have feet if I didnt pipe them a certain way.

Namratha said...

Ohhh, they are perfect!!

Paula - bell'alimento said...

Congratulations on your new domain name :) With all of these macarons floating around I'm going to have to break down & actually try to make some one of these days. Yours are quite tempting :)

Hyperion said...

Would these be any good frozen, like a chipwich?

Kitchen Butterfly said...

Stunning. Gorgeous. Smart. Give me macs....... please

 
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