Real French Macarons
Look Ma – no feet!
So it appears I am woefully lacking the ability to turn out a good and proper French macaron. Perhaps these could be classified as second-generation Belgian macaroons? Despite their lack of gloss and feet, they taste good enough to eat half a sheet pan of them, spread on their soft and chewy undersides with lemon curd.
Why am I making macarons on a regular Tuesday afternoon? It’s Daring Bakers’ Day, and I was determined not to miss another one. 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.
Ami says has tried many, many recipes, and this is her favourite. I myself am a macaron virgin (making, not eating, silly) and so don’t know one recipe from another. I have made meringue a time or two, and macaroons -there is a difference- the French macaron variety, while delicious, always came across as too precious. I’d still choose the big, robust, dense and chewy and gooily sweet variety, preferably doused in chocolate. But I was pleasantly surprised at how low-maintenance they were, even though they didn’t turn out right. I blame the almonds – I ground my own – and yes, to a fine powder with the icing sugar. I mean it couldn’t have been me, right?
Some recipes call for drying the unbaked macaroons on the counter for half to a full hour. This recipe has you bake the macaroons at a low temp. for 5 minutes, then take them out of the oven, raise the temperature, and baking them for an additional 7 to 8 minutes. Drying is necessary to get the trademark “feet”. I got no feet.
Claudia Fleming’s Macarons (adapted by Ami)
2 1/4 cups icing sugar
2 cups almond flour or finely ground almonds
2 Tbsp. granulated sugar
5 large egg whitesPreheat the oven to 200°F. Combine the icing sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of icing sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.
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.
Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
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.
Pipe 1″ mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper). Bake for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F. 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. Cool on a rack before filling.
If you’re looking for macaron references, David Lebovitz, Serious Eats and the always stunning Tartelette do know their way around them.
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