I went to an open day at Le Cordon Bleu London last month, and had the pleasure of attending a taster class demonstration, to watch a pastry chef make a 'Tarte Bourdaloue aux poires'. It was amazing, the kitchen was ultra modern with screens and mirrors so you could see everything, he had a crazy french accent, they gave me a glass of wine… they certainly convinced me to apply there. While the chef was making his delicious dessert, he casually made a macaron base while cooking something else, and told us 'it's so easy!'. Now, he should have seen my first macarons. 'Easy' wasn't quite what I felt when I took out my tray of a single, uniform almond pancake. I have practised quite a bit since then, and have finally come to peace with the recipe. In a way he is right, it IS easy. But only if you know exactly what to do, and what it should look like. And unfortunately, that only comes with practice. But don't worry, they taste good regardless of what they look like, and I'm sure people don't mind us practising a lot!
Vanilla macarons
Approx 25 sandwiched macarons, 2.5 cm diameter)
Macarons:
140 g Egg whites
180 g Caster Sugar
160 g Icing Sugar
160 g Ground almonds
Various colour essence
Simple Vanilla Buttercream:
150 g unsalted butter
250 g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp hot water
5-10 small strawberries cut in small pieces
Time: Approximately 45 mins to make, 12 minutes to bake. Filling and assembly, about 10 minutes.
Macarons
1. Measure up exactly all the ingredients and have them at hand, together with a mixer or a hand whisk. Use a stainless steel or glass bowl if possible.
2. Whisk the eggwhites and sugar into meringue, by gradually adding sugar into the eggwhites while whisking.
3. Make almond flour by sifting the icing sugar and the ground almonds together, before sifting the flour together into the meringue.
4. Put away your whiskers and fold gently with a spatula. When the mixture has the texture of thick porridge, add colour and taste essences like vanilla. Use paste colours from a specialist shop if you can.
5. Fold for a bit longer, and spread the mixture thinly around the bowl between strokes. Fold until the mixture feels like cake batter, and flows slowly, but not in lumps, from your spatula when you hold it up.
6. Put into a piping bag and pipe into 2cm circles, 2cm apart. If you get any batter peaks, pat them down with some water on your fingertip.
7. Tap the tray on your kitchen counter to get air bubbles out of the mixture. Let them stand to form a 'skin' for about 20 minutes, depending on air humidity.
8. Preheat oven to 150C (300F), and bake the macarons on fan heat, in the middle of the oven, for about 12 minutes.
9. You can tell when the macarons are done by probing them gently, and see wether they bounce or stay still. If they stay still and firm, they are ready. Be careful with the timing, they burn easily.
Butter cream and assembly
10. To make the buttercream, beat tempered butter white, and gradually sift in the icing sugar. Add the vanilla extract, or any other flavour, before adding a bit of hot water to help the buttercream set when cooled. The buttercream is usually the flavoursome part of the macaron, so here you can do whatever you like! I added a slice of strawberry to mine, as a mid-bite surprise. However, if you plan on serving these long after making them, I suggest to use something like jam so they won't go off or soak the macarons. Macarons freeze very well (did I mention I like to freeze things?), and it's apparently what they do at Laduree in Paris. So if it's good enough for Mr. Laduree, it's good enough for me.
11. Assemble by pairing macarons by size and piping a dollop of butter cream on one half before sandwiching them together. Et voilà!
If you have any problems with macarons like I did in the beginning, this is a nice blog to help you out:
