Perfected Macaron (procedure)

In making macarons, you need to start at least 3 days before…or longer. The eggs should be aged, leaving it in the fridge for at least 24 hours will make it more elastic – less air makes for smoother crust.

There are discussions about how eggs are aged. There’s either you put in the fridge upto 4 days or you leave it covered outside the fridge but  the salmonella-could-be-a-problem is brought up. So I chose the fridge as it has been becoming warm up here. I left the egg whites there for 2 days. The egg yolks are yet to be made into leche flan. 🙂

   

Macaron is rightfully derived from meringue, alright – it could be French, Italian or Swiss. French meringue uses fine white sugar which is beaten into egg whites. Italian meringue is made with boiling sugar syrup, instead of caster sugar. Swiss meringue is whisked over a bain-marie to warm the egg whites, and then whisked steadily as it cools. During our last attempt I used Italian, this time it’s French and I like the outcome.

 

For the ingredients please refer to previous post. For making macarons you’ll need a digital scale, mixer, bowls, spatula and scraper, piping bags and a round nozzle, baking tray and papers.

– Make circular patterns on baking papers – where you pipe the batter later. You can buy a macaron template too for this, at the moment I don’t know where to buy them.

– Sift 180g almond meal and 270g icing sugar (Confectioners’ Sugar or Powdered Sugar) together (this is your tant pour tant). Set aside.

-In a mixer, beat the egg whites at high speed slowly reducing to medium speed. Add in the caster (refined sugar) while the mixer is at medium speed, beat until stiff (this is your meringue).

– Fold the tant pour tant and meringue. At first I did a method of folding them in with counting…that was before a kind soul posted a comment with a link on the video of how Jill Collona, the author of Mad about Macarons. In the video, Jill showed the secret to making smooth macarons by removing oxygen in the batter with the use of a scraper. True enough these batch despite me not using a nozzle and piping bag turned out smooth enough.

– Put the batter in a piping bag with  a  small tip nozzle. Pipe the mixture onto the baking paper, not exactly the size of the circle as it will “run.” Leave the macarons aside so that they dry up a bit and that they form skins, about 30 mins or so.

– Depending on your oven, bake the macarons. I said depending because I’ve tried a lot of times and though some said to leave the door ajar, mine turned out hollow when I do that. So what I did was to keep the door closed but I lowered the oven to 150°C. I baked them for around 12 minutes, taking them out once to turn the tray. You can also check by touching a piece and you’ll know  that it’s ready when it’s dry.

– When they’re ready get them out of the oven and leave to cool a bit. Slide them off the baking paper, find matching pieces and turn upside down (at least half of them). They’re ready to be filled in.

For the chocolate ganache:

Put chopped 230 grams chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Bring 180 ml cream to a boil and pour on chopped chocolate. Put 30 grams butter and combine well. Let them cool and have them fill in two shells.

For the confectioner’s icing:

Combine 4 cups confectioners sugar with 1 cup unsalted butter and 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract, mix them in together and slowly put in 4 tablespoons milk or light cream until you achieve a buttery consistency. You’re ready to fill them in to.

Let the macaron cookies, fille up anf all rest and put them in the fridge for a day. This will make the filling put more flavor on the shells. Let them out at least an hour before serving.

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