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125g ground almonds
125g icing sugar
90g free range egg whites
2 tablespoons water
optional: food colouring
110g caster sugar
150g double cream, whipped
2 tablespoons sugar
100g fresh raspberries
Macarons are not only delicious, they are also very beautiful, if they turn out as they should, that is! Sometimes the result is disappointing... they're not the easiest cookies to bake. But Madelief is not easily discouraged! We're just going to try. We use the recipe by Lorraine Pascale on Baking Made Easy (BBC)
How to make Parisien Macarons
Weigh the right amount of ground almond and put it in a big bowl.
Add the icing sugar to the ground almonds in the bowl.
Separate the egg whites from the yolks and add 40g of the egg whites.
Mix all ingredients together until they become a paste.
Put water and sugar in a pan and melt the sugar.*
Whisk the remaining 50g egg whites medium-stiff.
Pour in the sugar-syrup and whisk till the mixture's stiff and shiny.
* Put the sugar-water mixture on low heat and stir to melt the sugar. If the sugar has dissolved completely turn up the heat until the mixture thickens and it's syrupy (sugar-thermometer 115°c).
Add the food colouring in drops if you like coloured macaroons.
Stir the meringue gently into the almond-paste until stiff and shiny again.
Spoon the macaroon-mixture in a piping bag with a 1cm round nozzle.
Preheat the oven to 170°c.
Pipe flat circles of app. 4cm in diameter, hold the piping bag vertical.
The piping will leave a small tip on top of the macaroons. Flatten them with a wet finger.
Leave the tray with macaroons rest 30 minutes. Then bake them for 12-15 minutes.
And then it happend. The cookies came out of the oven. But what was wrong with our macaroons? EVERYTHING!!! Soon we learned that baking macarons on a special silicone baking mat is no guarantee for succes. The first batch looked awful, they stuck to the baking mat we couldn't get them of to take a picture.
But no worries, we prefer to start again. We had taken into account it wouldn't work for the first batch so let's go for the second attempt! (Photo top right side of the page: result 2nd attempt).
Third time lucky! Not perfect but an okay result.
Whip the double cream with the raspberries and sugar.
Add more raspberries until you like the colour.
Sandwich the macaroons together with the raspberry-cream.
Whats wrong with our macaroons? First: no hard and shiny top. 2nd: no wrinkly edge on the bottom. 3th: de color isn't a bright pretty pink.
But...4th: the macaroons taste super delicious, the filling tastes terrific, just right. These cookies disappear before your eyes!
How tasty these macaroons are, they're not as beautiful as we hoped they would be and practice makes perfect. So Madelief and snazzie agree, next time she's here we bake chocolate macaroons. Who knows? They may turn out perfect this time ;)