I must have passed a French Macaron store a 1000 times while in France on my comings and goings; at the blue little Patisserie on the corner, at the grocery store, in the coffee shops, yet I have never had the urge to make those sweet little French "cookies." They always looked so perfectly delicate in a rainbow of pastel colors. Like perfect tiny delights that can bring a smile to any face. But to me, its best to leave what is already great alone. Let the French make French macarons and I will make cupcakes with gobs of frosting and we will all live happily ever after.
My sister, however, took a special interest in macarons and took with her from her visit to France a determination to recreate what the French do so well. This is not an easy task for anyone much less someone residing in one of the most consistently humid places in the United States. That tiny bit of extra "water" floating through the air does not bode well with a "cookie" that must be so precise even professionals will fail many times in their making. This girl has determination made of steel. I would have given up after 3 tries of flat crepe like cookies but she went on to try a 4th, 5th and 6th time and still continues to strive for greatness even after 10 different efforts have been made.
The Macarons have feet!
Chocolate Macarons with Chai Filling(the tops had a nice crisp so they also broke easily)
by my sister
Her 9th and 10th tries were successes! Not absolutely perfect but pretty darn close. She finally grasped the "holy grail" and achieved "feet," something a true French macaron must always have. The only drawback of this great achievement is I am not so sure she can tell me the exact amount of each ingredient she added. I am a weigh by ingredient girl. I weigh everything. I want the exact proportions so I can tinker with the ingredients and figure out what went wrong, what went right and how much I can get away with changing. She, on the other hand, is satisfied with using measuring cups and eye balling it.
French macarons are an absolute science. Anyone who tells you otherwise has never been able to achieve the French macaron. If you do not have the exact proportions, you will not achieve feet, a crispy exterior or light as air interior. Too much meringue and your French macarons could fall flat, the wrong kind of nuts and you could have to much added "liquid" or too little. Different nuts have a different moisture level and this tiny, insignificant amount of moisture could make all the difference.
Upon visiting her in Mississippi, along with my sister's help, I tried to achieve the impossible but my way, with a researched recipe consisting of weighted ingredients. This was not an easy feat and having the Gulf of Mexico only 100 yards from our doorstep did not help matters. I followed a recipe put together by the blogger of Not So Humble Pie. She did all the research, compiling all of the top macaron recipes on a chart and maping out the averages of everything. She breaks down all the reasons your macarons may fail, all the reasons you may have success and how to achieve the latter with as little frustration as possible. I absolutely loved this website and credit my somewhat success to this blogger.
Ms. Humble's Scatter Plot Macarons
yields 50 (100 shells) macarons (feel free to divide it for fewer cookies)
120g almond meal
200g powdered sugar
100g egg whites
30-35g granulated sugar
food coloring gel
Line 2-3 heavy gauge aluminum baking sheets with parchment or silicone liners (more on this below). Prep a piping bag with a round tip (I use a Ateco #11 for most of my macs, though I'll occasionally use a #804 for larger macarons). I place the bag into a tall drinking glass (or stout glass) and cuff the bag's opening over the top, this makes the bag easy to fill hands-free.
Weigh out almond meal and powdered sugar and sift together to remove any clumps. (If you own a food processor, I highly recommend blending the ingredients and then sifting.)
Weigh out the egg whites into a large mixing bowl (stainless steel or copper), if you're using stainless feel free to add a pinch of salt, 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar or couple drops of lemon juice to help strengthen the whites. If you're using copper you need not and should not add any additional acid (more on this below).
Weigh out the granulated sugar. (Often I'll use homemade vanilla sugar for this.)
Begin beating the eggs on low speed. What you're doing here is unraveling the egg white's proteins (these are what will capture the air bubbles you whisk in), they're bundled up and you need to gently unwind them. A light touch does this far better than scrambling them on high speed. Once the egg whites are very foamy, begin sprinkling in the sugar as you beat. Increase the speed to medium, if necessary, and beat the meringue to stiff glossy peaks. (If they start looking grainy, clumpy or dry... uh... you've gone too far.)
Add the food coloring (for the full recipe it usually takes 2-4 drops of gel, for a half batch 1-2 drops does the trick) and mix.
Add about 1/4 of the almond/sugar mixture and fold in until no streaks remain. Continue to add the almond mixture in quarters, folding until you reach the proper batter. (More on this below)
Pour the batter into your prepared piping bag and pipe rows of batter (dollops a little bigger than a quarter) onto the baking sheets, giving them space to spread.
Tap the pan on the counter to bring up any air bubbles and quickly pop them with a toothpick.
Allow the cookies to rest on a level surface for 30-60 minutes. Until they are no longer tacky to a light touch. If you have problems with burst shells, you may need to allow them to rest longer or double stack your baking sheets to provided better insulation from the bottom.
While they rest, place an oven rack in the lower 3rd of your oven and preheat to 275-310°F (I've had the most success with about 285-290°F). I do not use fan-forced (convection) heat. If your oven tends to brown the cookies, consider placing a rack in the top of the oven with a baking sheet on it to shield the cookies. Occasionally my top element in my spastic electric oven turns on and browns my cookies, upsetting me greatly.
Bake the cookies for 16-20 minutes.
Remove the cookies from the sheet soon after removing from the oven. If they're very sticky you may need to allow them to cool a little but ideally they'll have good bottoms and you can lift them right off the paper immediately. Place them upside down on a surface to cool (I find allowing them to cool upside down prevents the cookie's interiors from settling during cooling and creating hollows).
Once cool they're ready to fill.
Definitely check Not So Humble Pie out. The wealth of information she gives about French Macarons is amazing and not to be missed if you have ever wanted or have attempted French Macarons.
I was very surprised my macarons did not fail. They actually had feet! They were a bit chewy on the inside but nonetheless, I was very impressed!
I really never thought my macarons would come out so I was not concerned with piping them into perfect little circles.
My macarons are growing feet!
They are a bit flat but they still have feet!
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