Daring Bakers: Macaroons

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.

I think I may be one of the only bloggers out there that hasn't had a french macaroon or dreamed of eating the perfect one. They are not something that I grew up eating. We always had the macaroons that are made mostly out of coconut. Even though I'm not familiar with the french version, I have seen them every where in the food blogging world. I thought they sounded interesting but I wasn't going to go out of my way to make them.

Until the Daring Bakers that is! When I saw that macaroons were our challenge this month, I had to read through the directions many times to make sure I understood every step. I'm prone to skipping over steps that are pretty important when I hurry through reading recipes and it nearly always ends in disaster. The recipe didn't seem to difficult and I thought I would be able to make it through without any major mishaps.

For the most part I was right. My egg whites whipped up perfectly thanks to my handy dandy immersion blender and though my homemade pecan flour wasn't perfect, I was able to sift it enough to make it less lumpy. I went with pecans instead of the traditional almonds because we were allowed to and almond flour apparently is unheard of in my local grocery store despite being in Dallas. I could have ordered it online but that looked a little too pricey since it was all I needed. And of course, pecans are my favorite nut and this is Texas where pecans are our state nut after all!

I also added some matcha to the macaroon batter to give it some color. The piping would have went a lot easier if I had a pastry bag. I didn't and had to use a ziploc bag. Not necessarily a bad thing but I cut the tip just a little too big and while trying to pipe each macaroon out, some were bigger than others and some started to run together.

I was able to get enough that didn't run together to make a few sandwiches, however. For my filling I went simple. Simple as in that jar of Nutella looks pretty darn good. I considered making a filling from scratch but the nutella was the right consistency that I wanted as well as flavor.

All in all, these turned out pretty well. The flavor was excellent and the color was great. I was able to get something that looks close to a traditional macaroon (feet and all!). They may not be something that I will make all that often but it was fun to try. I may bring them out when I want to impress some cookie lover!

Is it just me or do these french macaroons look like they are french kissing?

Thanks to our host, Ami for the challenge! For more macaroons, check out the Daring Bakers' blogroll!

Macaroons

Actual baking time: 12 minutes total, plus a few minutes to get your oven from 200°F to 375°F.

Equipment required:
• Electric mixer, preferably a stand mixer with a whisk attachment
• Rubber spatula
• Baking sheets
• Parchment paper or nonstick liners
• Pastry bag (can be disposable)
• Plain half-inch pastry bag tip
• Sifter or sieve
• If you don’t have a pastry bag and/or tips, you can use a Ziploc bag with the corner snipped off
• Oven
• Cooling rack
• Thin-bladed spatula for removing the macaroons from the baking sheets
• Food processor or nut grinder, if grinding your own nuts (ouch!)

Ingredients
Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)
Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.) (I made my own and used pecans)
Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g, .88 oz.)
Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)
Matcha: 1 tsp

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.

Yield: 10 dozen. Ami's note: My yield was much smaller than this. I produced about two dozen filled macaroons.