My love affair with French Macarons
So my love affair - some might call it an obsession - with baking the perfect French Macaron all started with a Christmas present from my lovely Mother-in-Law to-be Dominique of my very first actual French cookbook - Les Basiques de la Pâtisserie - What better way to practice my french than by translating lovely french patisserie recipes! Guess what I found right there in the book? That's right, a recipe for basic macarons .
This recipe has remained my basis for most of my macaron shells, which I can then add to with different colours and fillings depending on what flavour combinations I'm going for.
The reason I like this recipe so much is it's simplicity. In the past I had been put off trying macarons because they always asked for so many grams of egg whites and warned that if you weren't exactly specific than the macarons would be ruined!! This recipe, however, just asks for 3 egg whites - simple!!
My first batch of macarons actually turned out quite good - They didn't look spectacular but tasted really good. I even got the seal of approval from a real french man!! The part I have struggled with since then has been getting the right consistency when adding different colours to the macaron batter and stopping it from cracking.
As you can see from these ones, with the addition of the coffee, raspberry and lemon flavors in liquid from to the macaron batter, the consistency became more runny and so didn't keep its shape. The plain almond ones kept their shape well with a few cracks.
Issues of cracking and spreading have taken me a while to sort out as I experiment with different colours and flavours but I think I have finally found a solution that works for me.
To keep a good consistency in the batter I try, where possible, not to use liquid colour or flavours at all. For raspberry, i use finely sifted freeze dried raspberries (stolen from the Special K cereal box) and if colours are needed I use powdered colours also finely sifted.
To combat the issue of cracking - one of the most annoying issues as, despite your best efforts, sometimes it just happens anyway - my solution is to sift the ground almonds about four times , then sift the icing sugar, then sift the almonds into the the icing sugar, mix it together with an electric mixer and sift into the egg mixture in two batches. Yes, I do realise that this is probably a bit of overkill but the results are worth the extra effort.
My favorite flavour combinations so far are:
Salted Caramel (Recipe by The Tough Cookie)
Dark Chocolate and Orange
Lemon and Ginger
Raspberry/Mixed Berries and Dark Chocolate
Coffee
Macarons make the best gifts and I have had so much fun getting creative with decorations. My love affair continues and I'm sure I'll be back with some more delicious flavours very very soon. For now I'll leave you with some of my Macaron pressie creations.
Thanks for reading x
