Sunday 18 April 2010

I ♥ macarons




For some time I've been meaning to make macarons as I LOVE them (especially those from Pierre Herme and Laduree). I even bought the book I ♥ Macarons by Hisako Ogita as it's a great step by step guide to making macarons (also it is pure food porn - the pictures make you want to eat macarons immediately).

So, after months of planning I finally got round to making macaron. I had planned to buy a food processor after being told they were a must for making them, however my kitchen is full and I figured I could give it a go with my 'stick' blender - and if they didn't work I could blame my lack of food processor!

Making macarons taught me one thing - I don't always read recipes properly.

I followed all the steps carefully - from the sifting of the almonds and icing sugar (blitzed with my stick blender which had previously been using mainly for soup and my katsu curry recipe) twice, to the process of macaronnage (carefully counting out loud how many times I scooped the batter to ensure I didn't go over 20 scoops!), leading to macaronner when my mixture became nicely firm. However as I didn't read ahead I couldn't make pink macs, as planned, as I should've added the colour to the meringue mixture pre-adding the almond mix. Then the mistake I thought had ended it for me. Rather than read how to pipe the macs properly I decided to make a swirl and do it my own way - this lead to me having to scrape them off the parchment and starting again. At this point I nearly gave up as I was sure I'd cocked it up but thought I should just bung them in the oven and see - so after re-piping properly, rapping the sheet on the worktop (to help me form the pied "foot"required to be macarons) and leaving them to dry for 30mins into the oven they went.

15 minutes later I was screaming through the house "I have feets, I have feets" (and the neighbours must have been thinking I was insane) as my macarons cooled. Once I got over my excitement and stopped grinning like the Cheshire cat I made some buttercream and flavoured it with some Bailey's and piped it into my macs and stood back and basked in their beauty!

Although I still prefer cupcakes I will definitely be making macarons again - next time expect some colour though :)

2 comments:

  1. I am hoping that once you have the knack macarons are no harder than any other technically exact thing...so I look forward to bright colour and flavours next time!

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  2. I did wonder what the hell you were on about when you came running through to tell me you had feets! I'm so glad they worked, they were utterly delicious, easily as good as any we've bought. You can add them to the menu at Pootle's Bakery :) I'm so proud of you hun bun xxxx

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