Holy Macaron!

I finally did it!

I’ve been trying to make macarons for a while now. Unfortunately all the recipes I’ve tried until now always required a certain delicacy that honestly, I just never had the patience for. However, while babysitting the other day a certain book caught my attention on the shelf, as I was looking for my daily “nap-time” read. The book titled: Secrets of Macarons by Jose Marechal changed the way that I make Macarons. Now I just want to do them every day!

I’ve always found recipes online that call for a French meringue base.

French meringue: You beat the egg whites and add the powdered sugar/almond meal mixture to this very gently. For this process you have to be very gentle in order to get the right consistency. Honestly, I never knew how many times I had to ‘fold’ the batter, because each batch was different.

To say the very least: it was always a HOT mess!

But then Marechal’s book mentioned that you could use an Italian meringue, which created a more stable base for the batter.

I remember looking at blogs and seeing candy thermometers in syrup and immediately went to the next, because…well…it just looked too crazy and complex.

I took Jose Marechal’s word for it this time. I went to the store and bought all my ingredients. I decided to use “The Baker Chick” recipe (http://www.the-baker-chick.com/2013/04/making-macarons-what-i-learned-in-paris/)

Her recipe measured each ingredient in weight and not cups. This way I knew I would be able to be more precise.

I searched for that candy thermometer and began weighing my ingredients. When I started boiling that sugar syrup with a makeshift candy thermometer holder (a aluminum traveler’s coffee mug), I felt like a bit of a mad scientist. (Since I’m a total nerd) I LOVED IT!

The meringue became nice and glossy once the syrup was added. When I then added half of the meringue to the almond paste it was so easy to work, that I thought I was being punk’d.

Once I had the mixture together I made my little dollops on a baking tray lined with baking paper. I let them sit 15min to crust a little bit, and after being in the oven for 5 min I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Perfect little maracon patties/cookies!!!

I was actually jumping up and down, overjoyed with excitement. My mother and close friend gave me odd looks, but oh well…

Today, I then decided to make a cinnamon butter cream for the center. (I had not taken the butter out of the freezer yet yesterday.)

When I finally tried one today… it was delicious. The flavor reminded me of cinnamon toast. I also instantly OD’d on just one, because it was so rich.

Here is my recipe for the butter cream filling:

Cinnamon Toast Butter Cream:

150g of butter (room temp)

100g of powdered sugar

2 tsp. of honey

1 ½ tbsp. of cinnamon

Overall the last few days have been packed with the excitement of finally mastering the macaron. For the future id like to rework the butter cream and find a lighter fluffier alternative. I prefer the fresh cream filling used in the Swiss Luxemburgli.

However, I think I will thoroughly enjoy my 8mi run tomorrow. It is especially needed since I ate at least 4 of those macarons throughout the day today…