Macaron, ou non? A work in progress.

Admittedly, for someone who's lived in Ottawa for 5 years, my French language skills are abysmal. However, my French macarons are slowly improving! Somewhat ironically, macarons are very simple in their constituents (egg whites, sugar, ground almonds, and icing sugar), but kind of complicated to make. Which is probably why they're so expensive, for sandwich cookies. If you like to cook and bake, this is not the worst thing ever. 

The bubbly part is called the foot. Appetizing, eh?

Personally, I like the challenge (and like to think that the macarons improve each time I make them), and it's kind of cool to see how each of the ingredients contribute to the finished product. Plus, when your mind is occupied with the science of how these cookies are coming to be, you don't resent the fact that you've spent three hours of your life doing this instead of being a productive member of society.

This recipe was given to me by a family friend, and her macarons are divine. Following the same recipe yields different results on my end, and I've been trying to conservatively adjust the recipe to better suit my kitchen (almond flour's expensive and I had finals, so I'm not there yet). The Italian meringue method (see the Berry Semifreddo recipe) may be more reliable, but for the size of this recipe, is probably not worth the effort. The French method is much easier to do in a home kitchen, in my opinion. My macarons are far from perfect, but the following is what I've learned from that experience.

Be warned that this is a long recipe, so there's a lot of reading but also a lot of time spent actually making these cookies. Consider doing this during a TV marathon of some sort. It's also something you really only enjoy if you can delay gratification (which makes me feel like an adult).

First of all, there aren't any chemical leaveners. All of the lightness is provided by the use of egg whites, which are whipped up to introduce air into the batter and whose proteins provide structure to tiny air and water pockets. However, since there are other ingredients that we're trying to support with this foam, it helps to add cream of tartar to slightly lower the pH and stabilize the whipped egg whites. Eggs, as you might have noticed from the smell, contain a bunch of sulfur; lowering the pH allows for more hydrogen ions to interact with the sulfur and helps prevent overbeating (which forces the existing water out of the egg foam and causes separation). 

The eggs might be the trickiest part of macaron making, and the easiest to mess up. To ensure you make the most of your eggs, don't let them come into contact with oil. Crack and separate them one at a time, and if you break the yolk, discard (from the recipe, you can bake something else with them or fry them up so it isn't wasted) and start with a fresh egg. The yolks, or greasy bowls, will interfere with formation of the egg foam and make your life in the kitchen hell. To prevent this, wipe the bowls out with a paper towel slightly dampened with a bit of vinegar or lemon juice, and let air dry.

It also helps to age your egg whites (separate them from the yolks and place them in the fridge in a bowl overnight) but I don't really do that very often because not only does it mean that I have to find a place for them in the fridge, it also means that I have to have the forethought to prepare a day ahead. If you can, it's great because it allows some of the liquid to evaporate, and the less moisture, the better, but it's not critical.

There's also the use of food colouring. I'd strongly advise against using the liquid ones, as they add too much liquid and weigh down the egg whites. I like using the gel ones, which can be bought fairly cheaply and last pretty much forever (in a post-apocalyptic situation, they can be used to colour your teeth and potentially frighten your enemies, but I wouldn't count on that). Apparently, some people use powdered pigments, which I'd love to try but have difficulty finding. Let me know if you have any idea where to buy them.

Almond flour is an ingredient that's fairly easy to troubleshoot. It's also sold as just ground almonds or almond meal. You'll want to get yourself some finely ground almond flour- I don't have a food processor so I use Bob's Red Mill almond flour, but you can grind your own blanched almonds for a cheaper alternative. Add some of your powdered sugar (which will absorb some of the moisture and sometimes contains a bit of cornstarch) to it to prevent it from becoming almond butter. If the resulting flour seems too wet, spread the flour over a baking tray and dry it in the oven on low heat (you don't want to toast them).

This seems like a super picky food to make because it is. It requires two kinds of sugar. You'll need granulated sugar (the normal, table sugar that you generally bake with), and icing (or powdered, or confectioner's) sugar. The granulated sugar is added to the egg whites while they're being beaten so that it's mixed in tightly with the foam and helps hold the existing water in place (sugar is hygroscopic and it increases the viscosity of the water so it won't move around as much), and will help keep the structure solid throughout baking. The icing sugar, on the other hand, seems to be less dense, and provides bulk while being light enough to allow the meringue to rise in the oven. By manipulating the ratio of granulated to powdered sugar, you can control the height of your macarons.

The last part is the flavouring. I tend to avoid adding things to the meringue, but have successfully added about 2 tsp of matcha (for green tea macarons) or 1 tsp cocoa powder + 1 tsp finely crushed Oreo crumbs (for cookies & cream macarons) without compromising the structure. Otherwise, just flavour the filling, it's way easier. Unless you can show me where to find freeze-dried fruits, I'll stick to jams and flavoured buttercreams.

The recipe today is for strawberry macarons, but it can easily be changed to another flavour by using a different colour in the meringue and substituting the filling.

What you'll need for the macaron shells:

Finely ground almond meal, icing (powdered) sugar, eggs, granulated sugar, cream of tartar, food colouring. The pinch of salt didn't photograph well. 

Separate the yolks out and set them aside (I usually give them to my roommate, who's perpetually slim, or make lemon curd with the extra yolks). Put the whites in the mixing bowl with the food colouring, a pinch of salt and the cream of tartar. You can do that after the whites have come to room temperature, but I'm forgetful so I put that all in at the same time.

Make sure everything's clean and de-greased, otherwise it won't foam up and you'll be left crying on your kitchen floor in frustration. Not that that's happened to me.

While you wait for your egg whites to come to room temperature, sift together your almond flour and powdered sugar.

Don't over-fill your sieve like I did, it's really difficult to sift stuff when it keeps falling out of the top.

There will probably be a few almond bits left that won't go through the sieve, and that's fine. Don't bother trying to force them in, they'll just make the macaron tops look bumpy. 

If you try to force them through the holes in the sieve, you might break some of them apart. But more likely, you'll hurt your fingers.

After the egg whites have come to room temperature, you can start beating them with a whisk attachment (hopefully you have a stand or hand mixer, it's a lot of work by hand). When the egg whites have come to a foam, you can slowly add the sugar as it's being whisked.

It looks like a cloud might if the sky rained blood. Maybe strawberry wasn't the flavour to go with.

Keep beating the egg whites on high until they form soft peaks. Depending on your mixer, you might want to scrape the bowl with a grease-free spatula during mixing to make sure all of the egg whites get beaten. 

These might not be perfect soft peaks. Oh well.

I like to stop about here, the egg white foam is easiest to work with at this point. 
Get your almond meal/icing sugar out at this point, and gently fold it in in three batches. 

Try not to cry in frustration as you attempt to mix it thoroughly but not excessively. What.

When it sort of has the consistency of magma (I've never even seen magma) then you're done mixing. Don't go past this point, you can't undo overmixing.

I don't even know if this flows like magma, so we're going to pretend that we've seen magma, and that it has this consistency.

A lot of people use piping bags to dispense the macaron batter, but I use freezer bags because I can get them from the grocery store and they can seal up at the top.

If you have the ability to plan ahead, you can clear the table before you start so you aren't scrambling to do these things when your macaronage is ready.

I like folding the top over a heavy glass to hold the bag open while I pour in the mix.

The sun started to set as I was doing this. Because macarons take forever to make.

Press the air out of the bag and seal it up. Pick one of the bottom corners and snip a small piece off. I used to do this with a piping tip but found that it doesn't really matter as long as the hole in the bag is somewhat small and round. That's great because it means less dishes to wash.

This is when you can pretend you're a French baker and talk to your roommates in broken French punctuated by "oh ho ho bien sur". But that might be a little racist.

Pipe the macaron shells onto parchment paper (some people use Silpats to line theirs; I've found that in my oven, parchment yields better results on humid days (it was quite humid when I made these, which is kind of rare in Ottawa).

They're like buttons. That are full of eggs, almonds, and frustrated tears.

Try to make sure there's a good distance between the piped shells. If you've started this recipe at night or early in the morning, apologize to your roommates. Put the sheet of macarons onto a cookie sheet and drop the sheet on the counter from about 6 inches above. It's loud, but this is probably the best way to get the excess bubbles out of them. If there are lumps or blobs in them, you can smooth them with a spoon or very clean finger. 

Let them sit for at least 20 minutes, then preheat your oven to 280 degrees Fahrenheit. There's a fair amount of variation between ovens- mine works best at 280 or 275, depending on the day (I'll do 275 for longer on humid days) but your best bet would be to get an oven thermometer to be sure.

When at least 20 minutes have passed, you can test the macarons by poking them with your (clean) finger. If they're sticky and your finger comes away with batter on it, they need to rest longer. If they seem to have formed a sort of dry skin, then they're good to go.

Don't sit in front of the oven watching. Someone will trip on you.

Place them in the oven for about 13 minutes. I like to do one tray at a time, but that's really only ideal when you have an entire hour to kill looking through your dirty oven window.

Not pictured: my now-stronger thighs from constantly squatting to look into the oven.

After about 10 minutes, they'll look something like this. Wait a few minutes, then open up the oven (try to minimize how much you open it up, meringue doesn't do well with temperature fluctuations) and carefully poke one with your finger. If it's wiggly, they're not done and you should wait a couple more minutes. It'll be slightly different depending on the weather and your own oven, so this is something to try with a smaller tray of them in case they don't work out. 

Remove the tray from the oven; I like to leave the shells on the tray for a minute if it's humid out, then remove the parchment sheet with the shells on it and let it cool on a drying rack. When a few minutes have passed, you can carefully peel them away from the parchment and flip them over, so the inside stuff sets throughout the macaron shell.

You can see where the paper wrinkled underneath the shells. I think you can avoid this if you actually age your eggs and use a Silpat.

Mine are kind of tall, so I might adjust the granulated/icing sugar ratio.

While the macarons are baking, you can get started on the buttercream. 

Grab a handful of strawberries (I use frozen since I always have them in the freezer) and place them in a small saucepan over medium heat to reduce (evaporate some of the liquid). You can either blend them before or mash them up on the stove, depending on if you want strawberry chunks in your buttercream or not. Reduce it by about half, so you end up with concentrated strawberry mush.

This smells really good but burns your mouth real bad.

What you'll need for the buttercream:

Icing sugar, butter, vanilla extract, and reduced strawberry puree. Maybe milk.

Get the butter and about half of the icing sugar into a bowl, and mash it together with a fork to sort of cream it. If you don't want carpal tunnel, a hand mixer with the regular beaters would be ideal for this job but it might be too little for a stand mixer. 

After you cream those ingredients, add the reduced strawberry puree and vanilla and mix it all together. It'll be super wet and sticky, add the remaining icing sugar in increments so it becomes more frosting-like. 

If you add too much icing sugar, you can thin it with a splash of milk. You'll want to have it ever-so-slightly wet so it softens up the bottom of the shells overnight, but not so wet that it makes them mushy.

Mmmm. Finger-lickin'-then-hand-washing good.

Fill up a freezer bag or piping bag with the buttercream as with the macaron shell batter.

Match up the shells according to size, and pipe some buttercream onto one of the shells. Gently push them together and twist slightly to secure.

Yeah, I forgot to take a picture of just the strawberry ones. I also made cookies and cream and mango ones that day, so here's what I ended up with.

Put them in an airtight container and refrigerate overnight. They can be eaten right away, but are best if left in the fridge for at least 24 hours. These also freeze quite well, so you can make a huge batch and then freeze a bunch, just let some defrost in the fridge before serving. Or just eat ten of them in one sitting. I'm a grad student on the internet, not your mom.

Good luck!

French Macaron Shells

3 large egg whites (about 90-100g)
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
Pinch of salt
Food colouring
50g granulated sugar
200g powdered/icing/confectioner's sugar
120g finely ground almond meal/flour

Age egg whites in a bowl in the fridge overnight. Place in a grease-free mixing bowl with cream of tartar, pinch of salt, and food colouring, and let come to room temperature. Sift together almond flour and powdered sugar.

When egg whites are at room temperature, whisk them on medium-high until they form a foam. While on high, slowly add sugar. Stop when egg whites reach soft peaks, roughly 1-2 minutes.

Carefully fold in the almond meal/confectioner's sugar in three batches. Do not overmix.

Pour batter into a piping/freezer bag and pipe onto sheets of parchment paper (cut to size of cookie sheets). Let sit for at least 20 minutes until the tops have dried into a skin.

Preheat oven to 275-280 degrees F, depending on humidity.
Bake trays one at a time for 13 minutes, test by poking (if they wiggle, they're not done) and add a minute or two until shells are firm. 

Remove from oven onto a cooling rack (can take the entire sheet of parchment at once), then carefully peel off after a few minutes to finish cooling. 

When cooled completely, nearly cover one shell with filling and lightly press the other on, twisting to secure.

Refrigerate overnight in an airtight container, or freeze.


Strawberry Buttercream Filling

Handful of strawberries
2 cups icing sugar
1/4 cup butter, cubed
1 tsp vanilla extract

Reduce strawberries over the stove, and blend to desired consistency.
Cream butter with 1 cup of the icing sugar. Add strawberry puree and vanilla, mix to combine.
Mix in the remaining icing sugar in increments, whip until fluffy.

Let me know if this works out for you!

Further reading: 
On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee
http://notsohumblepie.blogspot.ca/2010/08/macaron-troubleshooting-new-recipe.html#more
Influence of pH-Induced Unfolding and Refolding of Egg Albumen on Its Foaming Properties (Lian and Kristinsson, 2006)
Understanding Food- Principles and Preparation by Amy Brown