Parisian Macarons

Parisian macaron is the new cupcake. They are everywhere. Every single one of the baking blogs I read has had at least one post about macarons. Bakerella even made Macaron Pops.

Do a google image search on macarons and prepare to be swept away to baked goods heaven.

Better yet, do a google image search on Pierre Herme macarons and, wow.

I found out that Mirabelles in Burlington sells French macarons, so I went there and bought some. Okay, twice. They were so good.

It was then that I decided I had to make my own.

After reading and researching, I found this excellent post from Serious Eats, How to Make Macarons.

Side note: That post was from October 2007. What rock have I been living under? I am only just recently learning of these amazing confections.

Here are the ingredients from the Serious Eats version:

Ingredients

225 grams icing sugar
125 grams ground almonds
110 grams egg whites (about 4), aged overnight at room temperature
30 grams granulated sugar
Pinch of salt

You’ll need to read that whole post, though, before you attempt this yourself.

Okay, so the first thing I did was take out a small loan to buy the almond meal. That stuff was $11/pound!

I found it in the natural section of the supermarket. You can make your own, but I do not have a good quality food processor.

Then, I had to convert all of the measurements into ounces because my scale is America-centric and doesn’t have grams. (Actually, it’s a postal scale that I use for measuring soap ingredients. USPS doesn’t need to measure in grams.)

Ingredients

7.9 ounces icing sugar
4.4 ounces ground almonds
3.9 ounces egg whites
1 ounce granulated sugar
Pinch of salt

Those are all weight ounces, not measuring cup ounces.

I read somewhere that you should age the egg whites for 3 days. (Ew, I know.) I put mine out Friday night and made my macarons Sunday afternoon. (I know, ew.) It makes the egg whites thin and watery, and gives your meringue more volume.

Pre-measure everything and have it ready before you start.

The almond meal is lumpy. Push it through a sieve before using.

Sift the powdered sugar, too. Then, whisk them together in a bowl and set aside.

Make the meringue.

Fold it into the almond/sugar mixture.

That’s it. Fill up a piping bag. I didn’t even use a tip; I just cut off the end.

Pipe onto your baking sheets, lined with parchment or a silicone baking mat thingy.

I went out and bought beautiful, shiny, new aluminum baking sheets. They work better than the non-stick because they don’t over-brown the bottoms.

Now, I have read everywhere that you have to let the macaron batter sit for an hour to form a skin and that is how you get the feet, or something like that, but that Serious Eats post mentioned that David Lebovitz didn’t think that was important.  So, I decided to try it both ways.

Here is the one place where I deviated from the Serious Eats post (well, besides the ganache recipe): I baked mine at 300-degrees, not 325.  And I did not use a double baking sheet or prop the door to the oven.  I basically followed the baking instructions on this post by Bakerella, where she takes a macaron class with Tartelette.

Go look at the photos at the top of that post and prepare to swoon!  While you are there, read the post.  It’s best to have read at least a couple accounts of how to make these before you try it.

I baked my first sheet of macarons right after they were piped.  When I opened the oven to look at them, I literally squealed when I saw that they had feet!  (Click for larger picture.)

My first batch of macarons.

Here is the side-by-side comparison of the sheet that went straight in the oven after piping and the one that rested about 1.5 hours.

The one on the left is the one that sat out.  It does have a higher foot, but it was kind of cracked, too.  The domed top is almost separated from the foot.  The one on the right went right in the oven.  That is from the same sheet as the ones above, cooling on the rack.  I liked those better.  (And they were shiny.)

I filled them with chocolate ganache, but not the recipe from the macaron recipe.  I made this one from Martha.

And here they are.  But, the pictures do not do them justice.  I want to marry these. They are that pretty.