Why am I waiting on egg whites? Because of my increasing obsession with creating the delicious, delicate, finicky dessert made famous in Paris known as "the macaron" (French) or in Amurica "the macaroon" which causes massive confusion since most Americans will first think of the coconut based cookie instead of the meringue-like one of a thousand flavors (including coconut). Sigh.
It all started yesterday when I read a little story written by a friend of mine. To be perfectly honest I had never eaten a macaron until my first attempts to make them on my own yesterday. I don't even know how I would go about getting "real" ones here in Ellensburg. Maybe Ladurée delivers... in any case, I figure if I want some fresh ones, I'm going to have to make them myself.
My first batch turned out like such:
chocolate macarons with chocolate ganache filling
This is what real macarons look like:
Glamorous, colorful and especially dainty... I might even go so far as to call them prissy.
The key different between mine and Ladurée's are les pieds! The feet! The goal when they cook is to have the heat escape through the bottom of the cookie and not the top, which is what causes cracking.
I have taken note of a few changes I will be making in my second attempt to make delightful macarons.
-I will not be distracted with "chocolate" I am going to flavor these macarons with some English toffee flavor and that will be that. No messing with coco powder.
-I will do the ribbon and glob test I read about
-I will fill my piping bag in a jar as to have both hands free and NOT over-fill it
-I will cook them at a higher temperature. Sort of...
-I will make a little platform out of cookie sheets so they don't cook so fast.
-I will continue to obsessively take notes.
Here are the rest of my photos from my first endeavor:
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