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.
One Year Ago: Tomato Apple Cake
October 27 2009 08:00 pm | cookies & squares
Erica B. on 27 Oct 2009 at 8:29 pm #
Feet or no feet they still look delicious. Desserts of Gramercy Tavern has been on my cookbook wish list ever since I made the Gingerbread. Thanks for sharing Julie!
Lauren on 27 Oct 2009 at 9:41 pm #
The feet are a tricky thing – I just barely got them. Regardless, your macarons look fabulous!! Wonderful job with this challenge =D.
Kate on 28 Oct 2009 at 7:09 am #
Thanks for taking the mystery out of the feet. Never knew how that came to be. I usually don’t read blogs with macaron postings… the perfect macaron seems too far out of my league. Does the texture and taste remain the same without “feet”… is it for aesthetics only?
JulieVR on 28 Oct 2009 at 8:19 am #
Aesthetics and texture – mine didn’t have the really crisp outer crust – they were wonderful and chewy though! Can I take this as reason enough to buy a new oven?
Lori on 28 Oct 2009 at 8:38 am #
Same issue for me. I have much better luck with Tartelette’s recipe.
Robin on 28 Oct 2009 at 8:39 am #
The no feet problem might have something to do with the altitude in Calgary. I know that the few times I’ve made them, the recipe that worked perfectly when I lived in Victoria came out flat and just not perfect when I moved back to Alberta. I’ve never quite figured out the adjustments that need to be made (I think that it’s supposed to be the flour) and instead have resigned myself to other, more successful baking and letting others make macaroons for me.
JulieVR on 28 Oct 2009 at 8:41 am #
Here I thought since it’s so dry here – and it’s the drying step that apparently produces the feet – that it would work extra-well! Like how do you dry macarons out in Victoria?? But sadly not. I don’t really have a problem with the altitude here – I don’t generally have to adjust recipes – but it could be! I’ll leave them to the experts and stick to the big, chewy macaroon beasts.
Amanda on 28 Oct 2009 at 11:00 am #
What kind of icing sugar did you use? The regular rogers stuff has cornstarch mixed in to prevent clumping, and some say that it causes issues. If you really hate yourself, I suppose you could make your own powdered sugar.
I discovered macarons on tartelette, and then spent WAY too much money on them in Paris last year (totally worth it!)
I’m tryin to convince my bf to pay for the beginner macaron class at Nectar’s as a xmas present.
JulieVR on 28 Oct 2009 at 11:27 am #
Yes- most icing/confectioners’ sugar has a bit of cornstarch in it but it shouldn’t affect them – it’s fine for making regular meringues with. You can’t really make your own powdered sugar in the food processor – it just makes it a finer version of granulated sugar – kind of like berry sugar!
A Canadian Foodie on 28 Oct 2009 at 12:19 pm #
Another serendipitous coincidence! Read my last blog entry, Julie! I am on a quest to master the elusive French macaron… and mine don’t have feet, either, yet. Isn’t that a drag? After all of that work… no feet. I have commited to some serious research, again… there is a LOT more out there three years later… I had worked at this venture, without much success, and with a LOT of tears, non-stop – about, oh, 30 tries…
Anyway, I have new inspiration, and a renewed belief that I CAN… and I am going to my first lesson on Saturday morning of this week. Are you interested in doing this with me? I will video tape part of my lesson (or could ask if you could come, but it is in Edmonton) and then we can share experiences on our blogs. I am also doing a journal.
The “failures” do taste yummmy, but not nearly as light and crisp, They are chewy and goey, but just not what we want, are they?
Happy fine tuning!
Hope to hear from you,
Cheers!
Valerie
Manon from Ontario on 28 Oct 2009 at 2:00 pm #
I’ve never had macarons!!! Man I’m a virgin :p
Guess who has H1N1 at home, yeppers, my 16 yr old daughter who is a chronique asthmatic now for the past three weeks but confirmed today, and one of my 13 yr old boy (twin) is now recovering from it, he had it for two weeks!
So hang in there gang, and get vaccinated if you don’t want to bring it home and share it with your loved ones!
Thanks again Julie for another great recipe
MFO
Mardi @eatlivetravelwrite on 28 Oct 2009 at 4:37 pm #
No feet but they look pretty good anyway!
Sarah G on 31 Oct 2009 at 5:38 pm #
Could just be the recipe. I have had good luck with ‘feet’ and macarons in Calgary. I know that you have to use their recipe with TWD. I didn’t realize it was macarons this week?
Jeraldine on 10 Jan 2010 at 1:43 pm #
Feet or not, a macaron lover is of great taste!
You might want to come try some of ours, we have 8 different flavours. They are the French macaron style, more Pierre Herme than Laduree. Be careful, you could become addicted!
329, 23rd Ave SW Calgary
403-244-8091
Farimah :D on 29 Mar 2011 at 5:16 am #
i love your macaroons..! now, my mom is bakin’ some macaroons too..!