Raspberry Macaroon Fail

I made my fourth batch of Parisian Macaroons (macarons) this past week, only this time… well, you’ll see.

I was planning on attending a barbecue on Saturday, so I thought it was a great opportunity to try the Raspberry Macaroon recipe I saw on Martha Stewart.com.

I went out and bought some fresh raspberries and some fancy-pants raspberry preserves.  (It was the only kind I could find made with actual sugar, instead of high fructose corn syrup.)

I should have known something would go wrong when I couldn’t find my camera and had to use my DSi XL to take the pictures for this post, but I pressed on, determined to have a plate full of beautiful and delicious macaroons to wow the crowd at the barbecue.

I pressed a handful of mashed raspberries through a sieve to make a tablespoon of fresh raspberry puree.

I gathered up all of the the ingredients.

I followed the directions to the letter, twice sifting the powdered sugar and almond meal, making the meringue, folding in the sugar almond mixture, then the raspberry puree. Then, I carefully piped the cookies on the parchment paper that I had so carefully cut to line the pans.

I omitted the food coloring, but look at the beautiful pale pink color from the puree.

I peeked in the oven window to see the lovely feet on my little creations.

But then, something went awry.  When I tried to lift the macaroons from the parchment, the soggy, sticky bottoms stuck.

I don’t blame the recipe.  I think it was a good recipe overall.  I blame the high (very high!) humidity we were having.  It was as if the insides had pulled all the moisture they could from the air.  (After I left them out for a day or two, they were actually quite perfect in texture, in fact.)

Still, I managed to salvage just a few for a photo.  Ah, this is what I had hoped they’d look like.

The cookies themselves were delicious, with just a hint of raspberry.

But, I still needed to make something for the barbecue.  And I still had a jar of expensive fancy-pants jam.  So, I made Butter and Jam Thumbprints from foodnetwork.com.  I already had everything on hand, even a vanilla bean.

They were pretty good, I’m told, though I personally thought they were too buttery, if there is such a thing.

If you missed my previous adventures in macaroon making, you can catch up here.