Macarons - 2021

A few years ago I tried making macarons with Michelle. They were delicious, but we didn't really term them a success. It was time to try again, this time with the expert from France - Brad - and the special macaron silicone mat he gave us for Christmas. We also used his recipe, which means we measured everything in grams.

Chocolate Macarons

• 125 grams almond flour (about 1 cup)
• 175 grams powdered sugar (about 1 1/3 cups)
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 110 grams egg whites (3-4 eggs' worth)
• 75 grams sugar (about 1/2 cup)

1. Mix the almond flour, powdered sugar, and cocoa powder until uniform.

2. Beat the egg whites until peaks form. While beating, add the sugar a little at a time.

3. Carefullly fold the egg mixture into the powdered mixture until smooth and shiny.

4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (or use a silicone macaron pan).

5. Put the batter into a piping bag with a large circle tip.

6. Pipe the batter into a grid of circles, each about 1.25-1.5" diameter.

7. Let the formed cookies sit on the counter for an hour. Prepare the filling during this time.

8. Bake at 320 degrees for 9-11 minutes.

9. Cool completely before removing from pan.

before and after baking

Ganache Filling

• 160 grams semisweet chocolate chips (about 1 cup)
• 2/3 cup cream

1. Place chocolate chips in a bowl.

2. Warm up the cream in a saucepan until it boils around the edges.

3. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate chips. Let sit for about a minute to allow the chocolate to soften.

4. Mix the cream and chocolate until smooth and shiny.

5. Cool in the fridge for 30-40 minutes.

6. Remove from fridge so filling is at room temperature when you want to use it.

Brad also sent me some variations (see below); slowly we'll get around to trying them. Unfortunately, however, my first solo attempt with pink-colored, vanilla macarons was less than spectacular! I measured exactly 110 grams of egg whites (which was 3 1/2 eggs), but I think I should have stuck with just 3 egg whites because they cookies spread a lot while sitting for the hour. Just like our previous failures, though, they still tasted great!

Because it's now February, I wanted to try a  pink strawberry filling. You'll recall that adding jam to our buttercream frosting was way too sweet. I decided to give French Buttercream a try, especially since it uses egg yolks (newly leftover from making the cookie part). 90% of the recipes I looked at required a candy thermometer; mine isn't reliable, so I went with this recipe. I actually wasn't very impressed with it. I imagine I could have messed up the process, but the result was too sweet and soft and liquidy. (However, we didn't let it go to waste! See here.)

It was also time to try an idea I had a while ago, making strawberry-flavored powder out of freeze-dried strawberries. In theory it should have worked; in practice it was a dud. Time to look into buying some strawberry or raspberry oil/extract. Maybe that would work better. (Note: The opened package of freeze-dried strawberries didn't turn into powder; they were no longer dry and just clumped together in the food processor. We had better success using a mortar and pestle on berries from a newly opened package.)

For Take #2, I'm experimenting to see if greasing the silicone mat makes a difference. Although I should only change one parameter at a time, I'm also lowering the temperature of the oven to 300 degrees and will bake them longer. And I also added a pinch of cream of tartar to the egg white. Here's the recipe I used for this batch:

• 45 grams almond flour (1/2 cup minus 1 tablespoon)
• 58 grams powdered sugar (5/8 cup)
• 2 teaspoons strawberry powder (see above)
• 1 egg white
• 14.5 grams sugar (1 tablespoon)

Results: This batch didn't stick! It actually didn't matter if the mat was greased or not, the sticking problem was caused by under-cooking. I didn't do any sifting this time, so the cookies were a bit lumpy, but of course they tasted delicious.

Vanilla Cookie: Omit cocoa powder. Reduce sugar from 75g to 45g. Add 1 tsp. vanilla to egg mixture after the sugar, still while beating. (You can also add red food coloring, which makes a nice pink cookie that looks good with raspberry or strawberry filling.)

Pistachio Cookie: Omit cocoa powder. Add 40g ground pistachios (food processed) to almond flour mixture. Optional: Add green food coloring to egg mixture after adding the sugar.

Raspberry/Strawberry Filling: Just use raspberry or strawberry jam, or make a sauce by cooking fresh berries with sugar, lemon juice, and corn starch. (Blueberry, blackberry, and peach would probably be good too.) Good with chocolate or vanilla cookie. Note: I read somewhere that jam fillings get soggy quickly, so serve quickly. Also, some suggested piping an outline of buttercream frosting to keep the jam from oozing out the edges.

White chocolate filling: Substitute real white chocolate chips (not white baking chips -- look for cocoa butter in the ingredient list) for the semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Pistachio filling: Mix 25 g. ground pistachios, 40 g. sugar, 1 tsp. vanilla, and 100g cream in a saucepan. Heat, then add 2 egg yolks while stirring vigorously. (You want to stir in the eggs before they cook or you will get scrambled eggs...you can also pour a little filling in a cup, whip in the eggs, and pour it back.) Remove from when thick and bubbly. Stir in 1 Tbsp. butter. As soon as the butter melts, cook quickly. (I pour it into a small bowl that is sitting in a large bowl of ice water.) Keep in fridge with plastic wrap touching the surface of the custard.

You can make pecan cookies or filling following the pistachio recipes. And you can make a vanilla custard filling by following the pistachio filling recipe and omitting nuts altogether.