Sorry I have been absent from the blog for so long but I will try my best and keep posting about anything I find helpful as well, not only my daily outfits. Hope everyone is doing great and hopefully you will enjoy what I have in store for you all (:
A lot of my friends have asked me for the recipe I use and I have been experimenting with various recipes until I found the right combination of them all. I love the crunchy outer shell of the macarons and their chewy center. They are so delicate and decadent and hopefully this recipe will help you save that $1.50 per macaron and allow you to make about 30 macarons for $5 or less (:
Ingredients:
3 large egg whites
1/4 cup of granulated sugar
2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup almond flour
Food coloring (optional)
First you start off by sifting your dry ingredients (almond flour and powdered sugar). Mix them together in a bowl until they are uniformly distributed.
You start off by making the merengue mixture by mixing the egg whites until they are foamy. Afterwards you gradually add the granulated sugar and mix them until a thick glossy foam comes out. The way you know your merengue is ready is by tilting your bowl and the egg whites mixture does not drip.
Gradually incorporate your dry ingredients into the merengue and mix it from the outside edges into the center. This process is called the MACARONAGE. Do not just mix it in circles. Do not over mix or your batter will be too runny and won't form the little skin that will help with the formation of the macaron "feet" (the little air holes at the bottom of it). Your batter is ready when it is the consistency of flowing lava (thick and flows less than regular batters)
Finally if you want to add food coloring (or flavoring) you can separate your mixture into two bowls in order to have two colors. Add a drop or two(depending on the color you want to achieve) and mix it until it has distributed uniformly. Remember that the color of whatever you bake will get lighter while it is baking.
You may notice your batter might be a little runny so if that happens, do not panic, just add a little extra almond flour to give you the lava-like flow.
In order to put your batter into piping bags, or in my case ziploc bag, just put the bag in a tall glass to make the pouring easier and less messy.
I just cut the corner of the bag and it gives you the round tip piping. Pipe out your mixture in circles onto parchment paper covered pans. I have tried with wax paper but the macarons are very sticky so you will have a high chance of eating some wax with your French delights.
Let the macarons dry for 30-50mins or until they form a skin and the batter does not get on your fingers when you touch it.
After the macarons have developed the skin, pre-heat your oven at 290F and let your macarons bake at that temperature for 15 minutes. You can check on them through the oven door(do no open the door) and you will see that they are rising and they should develop the "feet" in about half of the baking time.
Take your macarons out and let them cool down for 20 minutes.
Do not fill them right away as I once did; my filling was too runny and it bled through the macaron crunchiness, ruining the dessert.
The macarons i made last night did not form the little "feet" because I was experimenting with the almond flour and evened the mixture out instead of putting more sugar than almond flour. They still taste amazing but I feel like they are "wanna" be macarons since they do not look like they are supposed to.
For the pink macarons I made a rose water white chocolate filling, and the teal ones are a pistachio white chocolate cream.
I used Byron Talbott's recipe for the white chocolate rose water filling .
Ingredients:
3 Tbsp Butter (room temperature)
1/2 cup powdered sugar
3Tbsp melted white chocolate
1Tbsp rose water
Mix the butter with the sugar and add the melted white chocolate with the rose water. I added a drop of pink food coloring to give it a prettier look. Mix it all together until you get a thick buttercream. If your cream is too runny, you can always add more melted white chocolate and powdered sugar to hold it all together. I put the filing in a sandwich bag instead of a piping bag.
Check out his videos and be amazed by the delicious foods he makes!
For the pistachio white chocolate butter cream I played with the recipe from the rose water filling.
Ingredients:
3 Tbsp Butter (room temperature)
1/2 cup powdered sugar
3 Tbsp melted white chocolate
1 Tbsp pistachio syrup (you can buy it at BevMo or amazon)
1 1/2 Tbsp half & half
Mix all your ingredients together just like in the previous buttercream recipe. For this, the pistachio syrup has the green tint in it and it gave the buttercream a pretty nutty color.
Pair your macarons in appropriate sizes and pipe your fillings onto your macarons.
Usually you are supposed to let your macarons sit in the fridge over night in order for the filling to mix with the chewy part of the macaron and make you think that the macaron itself is flavored. I could not resist and had to try the pistachio ones and if I may say so, I did a fabulous job!
Do not be scared of macarons, of people telling you they are hard to make. I kept on failing because of that fear. The secret is in the consistency of the batter which has to be thicker than regular batter so your macarons do not spread when you pipe them out. If you macaron has developed the skin after drying, then you have achieved the perfect macaron. Once the skin is on your macaron, your "feet" will always follow while baking.
Hope you enjoyed my recipe and let me know if you tried it and succeeded(:
Bon appétit(:
"Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious"
Ruth Reichl
Hope you all have a fabulous rest of the week.
xoxo ,
Ioana
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