What I hope to do in this post is just to go over the basic recipe and tricks I've learned to make them work. Also, I've provided a link to Food Nouveau's Recipe which has step by step illustrations which are amazing reference.
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| Food Nouveau's tutorial for macarons |
I used recipes from: Martha Stewart.com, La Nouvelle Patisserie, The Larousse Gastronomique, and a local Magazine: "Food and Wine" doing a feature on macarons.
The long and short of it is that I took the ingredient ratios from Larousse, the technique from La Nouvelle, and the tips from Martha and Food & Wine.
Basically here's what I ended up with.
2 egg whites
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1/4 cup almond meal
1 tbsp. granulated sugar
Beat egg whites (unaged) until foamy, add granulated sugar, then beat until stiff and glossy. Fold in colour and almonds (processed with sugar) then pipe into 11/4" circles and let rest for 30 min. Bake at 325F for 16 minutes. Voila.
I know that's not very informative, but here's what counts!
- The egg whites need to age. Pierre Hermé leaves them out for 3 days! Old egg whites air more easily.
- Before you get started, trace out 1" circles on a sheet of parchment, turn it over and add another sheet on top. That way, you can reuse the template sheet, and you end up with perfect circles.
- Whisk egg whites in an aluminium bowl (or copper if you have it) and beat them on med-high speed.
- The almond mixture MUST be sifted. The finer it is the more even the texture will be.
- Be very gentle when folding in the almond mixture so as to not deflate the egg whites.
- Let the piped macarons sit and dry until they've lost their shine. I read that traditionally they are left for 3 hours! This will keep them from collapsing in the oven.
- Bake the macarons on two baking sheets instead of one and this will ensure even baking.
- Mine were a little overbaked so 325F for about 10 minutes with a wooden spoon to keep the oven slightly ajar.
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