When beginning my project, I went online and searched the toughest food to bake, and macarons showed up everywhere. Being a very enthusiastic macaron consumer, I decided to try and tackle this daunting dessert.

My first go was with Bryan (a professional chef and awesome human), and he did most of the heavy lifting. Prior to his visit, we had discussed the difficulty of macarons, and Bryan, being the perfectionist that he is, said that he had never made a perfect one. However, as we began, the macarons were not as difficult as I had expected: you just have to know what you are doing (thank god for Bryan). And you have to get every part right and make no mistakes. Starting to rethink how hard these actually are. Okay…they’re hard.

The first thing you have to understand is that this takes a lot of different things happening at once, it’s tough to do with just one person. The second is egg whites. Click here to see my guide for whipping the perfect egg whites, because really what does a ‘soft peak’ look like anyways?

Tips:

1. When you start, although the recipe does not call for it, you should mix the sugar and almond flour in a food processor and then sift it into a bowl. This will allow the macarons’ outer shell to be as smooth as possible. Sifting is always a good idea with basically any dry ingredient anyways.
2. You have to use a candy thermometer. It seems scary, but it’s not so bad.
3. With the sugar heating up, the egg whites can wait for the sugar, but the sugar can’t wait for the egg whites, so make sure your egg whites are done first.
4. Use a template! We traced the bottom of a shot glass with pencil onto parchment paper and made the circles about 1.5 inches apart. This way you can pipe the right amount in the right place, and all of your macarons will be the same size for even baking. Just make sure you put the penciled side down.
5. I realize the recipe is written using the metric system and that freaked me out as well, until Bryan made me buy a scale and told me it won’t work unless I follow the weights exactly. Seriously…I own a scale and actually use it to weigh flour when I’m baking anything and it is a game changer.
6. The cookies don’t actually have the flavor (they can with other recipes but usually don’t), that’s where the filling comes into play. You can make the same batch of cookies and use different flavored filling.

This is what the sugar should look like. Keep your thermometer in the pot and wait for 116 degrees C or “soft ball” stage.

Use a template for the right size and shape

otherwise they look like this

You will see tiny bubbles come to the surface- use a toothpick to pop them

Like I said…templates are the best idea ever!

Parisian Macarons Recipe

Tant-pour-Tant Dough

• 150g ground almonds (almond flour)
• 150g icing sugar
• 50g egg white, room temperature

Meringue

• 120g granulated sugar
• 40g water, room temperature
• 55g egg white, room temperature

Directions:

1. Sift ground almonds and icing sugar together and set aside
2. In a saucepan over medium heat boil 120g of granulated sugar and water together.
   1. Simultaneously whisk the 55g of egg whites on medium speed in a stand mixer bowl with a whisk attachment (or carefully with a hand-mixer) until you see stiff peaks.
3. Once the sugar syrup has reached 116 degrees C, reduce the speed of the mixer and pour the syrup down the side of the bowl in a steady but swift stream. Try to pour the syrup between the side of the bowl and the whisk, if it hits the whisk it will spray everywhere.
4. Once all of the syrup is poured in, bring the speed back up to medium to whip into a meringue for 8-10 minutes.
5. Pour the 50g of egg whites onto the dry almond-icing sugar mix in a mixing bowl and fold in the ingredients with a spatula just until they come together as a stiff dough
6. At this point, the meringue is ready to be folded into the dough when the bowl has cooled till just warm to the touch and the meringue is stiff and glossy. Fold the meringue in using gentle and firm strokes, scraping from all the sides of the bowl and pulling the spatula through the middle to incorporate all ingredients just till it reaches a smooth and glossy cake-batter like consistency. Do not push down batter, you want to keep it as full of air and fluffy as possible.
7. If you want to add food coloring and different colors to different macarons you can separate the batter into bowls, add food coloring gel (liquid will weaken your batter), and put them all into their own piping bags. Cut parchment paper to the size of the baking trays (you really want straight trays for this to get that perfect circle shape). Using a stencil of circles will help you make all of the macarons the same size. Leave 1.5 inch gaps in between each macaron.
8. Once a whole tray is piped with batter tap firmly against the counter to make bubbles rise to the surface. Pop any bubbles with a toothpick to avoid holes and cracks.
9. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C or 350 degrees F. The macarons will be ready to go in the oven when they have a sort of outer shell that is slightly sticky. This will give your macarons the “foot.”
10. Bake for 13 minutes. Once baked, let the trays and shells cool completely on a heatproof surface or a cooling rack before peeling shells of gently.

Butter Cream Filling

Ingredients:

• 1 Tablespoon Cream
• 1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
• 1/4 cup of soft butter
• 4 Tablespoons of your favorite jam, peanut butter, nutella or anything else you want to try!
• 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Directions:

1. Blend together the butter and half of the sugar. Stir in your jam or other flavor, cream and vanilla extract.
2. Gradually add the rest of the sugar until the mixture is soft and smooth.
3. Place in piping bag and pipe onto macaron cookie. Enjoy!