Life Skills - Day 29

How to Make Macarons

Haha, and here you thought you were done reading the baking blogs . . . not so fast, I have another one :) To be clear, I have never actually had a macaron before, and I had no idea what they were supposed to taste like, so these are my variation, I don't know if they are close, but they were sure tasty :) 

I followed two blogs (that complement each other nicely as they use almost the same recipe and one has tons of pictures while the other has many descriptions and helpful instructional pages): Eat. Live. Travel. Write. macarons and Brave Tart macarons. I also found this recipe from a blog I used quite frequently during cake month, Annie's Eats macarons, which uses a slightly different technique that I would like to try sometime, but not today. I have to apologize for not taking more pictures of the process, but I was a little worried these wouldn't turn out so I was concentrating too much to remember to take pictures, plus, the eat.live.travel.write. blog has more than enough pictures for the both of us. Below, you can see what I did:

What my batter looked like when I piped it. I think it was a little too runny, and that might have something to do with the vanilla I used (extract instead of a whole bean). The egg whites looked good until I put the vanilla in, then they got a bit too runny. I didn't think it was a good idea to leave it out though, so I just dealt with it. 

The piped cookies. As you can see, they are a  little runny, but not too bad. 

The uglier of the finished trays, this tray had some that cracked, but not all of them. Perhaps because it was on the lower oven rack so the pan on top was blocking the heat? I don't know. Also, I didn't know what they were supposed to be like when they were done, so I baked these for about 6 minutes longer than recommended (which could be why they are so crunchy). Oh well, live and learn, and for all I know, this is how they are supposed to be. If anyone out there has had macarons, please describe them to me :) 

Although they are a little flat, at least they look close to being correct, with the cute little "feet". 

Finished macarons. I made this amazing chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream:  Martha Stewart Buttercream, I cut the recipe in half and cooked the egg whites and sugar to 160 F before whipping. It was so good, that has got to be my favorite frosting. I made a strawberry version of it for a Neapolitan cake in February, and that was amazing too. I think Swiss meringue buttercream will be my "go to" frosting from now on, as long as the people I'm serving it to don't mind a bit of butter ;) I put the frosting on using a small cookie scoop because I didn't want to wash another pastry bag . . . it seemed to work pretty well. 

They are kind of cute :) (and very tasty too). Everyone who tried them liked them, and I've saved some to try a few days from now to see how the texture and flavor is then. So while these aren't perfect, or full of fun colors or flavors, I did enjoy these, and I don't think I'd mind making them again. I want one now, but I should probably go to bed instead. Good night :)