french macarons

I have been itching to make macarons for some time now.  I've been reading about all the different techniques used in making them - French style, Italian meringue style (also known as the sucre cuit method), aging your egg whites, not folding your batter too much, not folding your batter enough ... I finally decided to try Pierre Herme's recipe since his macarons are legendary, and I even bought his Macaron book, which is completely in French!

I must say, making macarons is quite a process.  First, you have to "age" you egg whites at room temperature for 48 hours (although I only aged mine for a few hours).  Then, you need almond meal, which I decided to make myself (I know it doesn't need to be this complicated, but I had bought a huge bag of almonds from Costco and needed to use them up!)  I blanched the almonds in boiling water for 30 seconds, then rinsed them in cold water so that I could peel/pop them out of their skins.

Then, I pulverized the blanched almonds with a food processor to turn them into a fine almond meal, then added powdered sugar and pulverized them some more.  After sifting the mixture 2-3 times, I was satisfied with the consistency.

Next up was the making of the meringue.  This involves cooking sugar and water on the stove, while using a candy thermometer to ensure that it reaches 245 degrees F.  In the meantime, I started whipping the aged egg whites.  Once they formed soft peaks and the syrup was hot enough, I added the syrup (slowly) to the egg whites and continued whipping until the meringue was stiff and glossy.

After that, I added fresh room temperature egg whites to the almond and powdered sugar mixture, and then folded in the meringue mixture in three batches.  After filling a pastry bag with the batter, then piping out the macaron shells on a silpat-lined baking sheet, I let them sit for 20 minutes before baking.  This is supposed to give them a nice shell, and also help in forming the "feet" (the puffy, frilly bottoms that form while baking).

After the macarons were finally done baking, I was a little disappointed when I pulled them out of the oven.  While the tops were smooth and pretty, the bottoms barely had the "feet" that I was looking for.

But once I tasted them, I didn't care.  The texture of the macarons blew me away!  They had a lightly delicate crisp shell, yet they were super tender and soft on the inside.  My husband pointed out that they were like biting into a toasted marshmallow, similar in that there was a thinly crispy exterior, with a soft and airy interior.

I could have eaten them all plain, but I decided to fill my macarons with chocolate ganache, although next time I might try a flavored buttercream of some sort.  Maybe I'll also try aging my egg whites the full 48 hours, to see if that helps with forming the "feet".  I can't wait to experiment with different colors and flavors too!