Finally back to baking - A first attempt at French Macarons

I was finally able to get back to some baking this past weekend after two months of complete craziness. Two large end of the fiscal year projects had me working some serious overtime, and I also spent a week biking around the Black Hills of South Dakota with my dad. Both projects have been wrapped up and turned in, so life is finally somewhat back to 'normal'.

A friend recently emailed me asking if I have ever tried making French macarons. These are distinctly different from the typical coconut macaroon that many of us probably grew up with. A coconut macaroon involves making a meringue, then folding in shredded coconut and baking. The result is a crunchy outside and chewy inside that is even better when chocolate dipped!

A "typical" macaroon, the coconut deliciciousness that most people think of when you say the word 'macaroon'

A French macaron also involves a meringue, but then powdered sugar and finely ground almonds are folded in to make a somewhat runny batter that is then baked and formed into little sandwiches using some sort of jam or buttercream filling. The recipe is fairly basic, and creates a wonderful meringue cookie that can accommodate almost any flavor profile.

A French macaron! Yummy little sandwich-type cookie. 

The trick to a good macaron is the right stiffness when beating the eggs and the correct number of folds when adding the powdered sugar and almond flour. Too little folding and the batter is too stiff, resulting in macarons that retain a little peak on the top and are not perfectly rounded. Too much folding, and the batter is too runny and won't set. A perfect macaron should be slightly domed but well-rounded on the top, with little crinkled 'feet' that pop up during baking and a light, airy texture.

When it comes to baking, I tend to throw technique out the window and go by what looks right or tastes good, but macarons require a fair bit of technical skill and a little bit of luck. So I was careful to follow the recipe directions, and also referred to this blog for help along the way: http://www.giverslog.com/?p=1089

I measured out the powdered sugar and almond flour (which I bought pre-ground, rather than making my own) and mixed the two together, then sifted the mixture twice. I actually ended up using a sieve, since the almond flour balled up in the regular flour sifter. After that was sifted and set aside, I got the eggs whipping. It took about 3 minutes for them to get foamy, then I added cream of tartar and continued whipping. Once soft peaks started to form, I added the sugar and continued whipping. (Note: the recipe called for baker's sugar, which is super fine sugar. I didn't have any, so I tried making my own by grinding some granulated sugar in the food processor. It worked well enough, but wasn't great.) Towards the end of the whipping process, I added some pink food coloring, just to make them pretty! I used the Wilton brand pink coloring for icing, and it worked great.

Once the eggs were whipped, I folded in the powdered sugar/almond flour combo. This is where it got tricky. The recipe I was using said to fold 50-75 times, until the batter reaches a "magma-like consistency". Being a geologist, I had to ask 'What kind of magma!!?' The viscosity differences between magmas are quite significant, and if we're talking basaltic magma that is an entirely different consistency than a rhyolitic magma! Ack!

Another tip was to watch for a 'toffee-like sheen' when the batter is ready. I've never seen fresh toffee, but the egg whites quickly deflated with the folding, took on somewhat of a sheen, and the consistency seemed "magma-like" after almost 60 folds. I dumped the batter into a prepared pastry bag and prepared to pipe the batter onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.

The piping onto the cookie sheet was quick, since the batter is pretty thin. The first round of macarons still retained a little bit of a peak after piping, the second round seemed a little closer to the consistency that I wanted (and didn't have any peaks on the top), so I'm guessing I could have used a few more folds before piping the first batch.

The macarons with little peaks were part of my first piping batch. The macarons on the sides and bottom of the image are from my second round of piping. Obviously those couple of extra folds that resulted while scraping the bowl made a big difference in consistency. Made me realize how easy these things are to mess up!

The recipe said to preheat the oven to 375 while letting the macarons rest for about 30-45 minutes. Once the macarons have started to develop a slightly hardened outer shell, turn the oven down to 325 and bake them for about 10 minutes, rotating halfway through.

As the macarons bake, they don't expand or rise, but rather develop little 'feet'. I was confident that my macarons would turn out well when I pulled them out of the oven and they all had cute little feet!

Some of the peaks remained during baking, but you can sort of pick out the little feet on the bottom of each macaron. 

Everything was looking good until I bit into one, and found out it was hollow!

A little too airy!

The bottoms of some of the macarons were also a little brown to slightly burnt, so I think I overbaked them. We have a new (to us) oven, so I'll have to get an oven thermometer so that I can really track the oven temperature, particularly with something so temperature sensitive. I am also going to experiment with just some basic meringue cookies in the near future, because I think that altitude has something to do with it, as it most likely affects the egg whites.

Perfection of the macaron will be an ongoing process, similar to my quest to replicate the Jacob Lake chocolate parfait cookie! So check back for another update sometime soon on my successes (and failures!) in the macaron-making process.