macaron adventure

A couple of things before I begin the adventure:

-My headphones have just broken and I am devastated. 

-I just bought a dress. This is something new, trust me. 

-Screw it, I've decided to do "Mismatched monday"s, "DIY Tuesday"s, and "trending Thursday"s. Mismatched monday will be just random thoughts I have or interesting things I've found. DIY Tuesday will be anything DIY that I've recently done (crocheting, baking, origami, etc.), with a tutorial. Trending Thursdays will be about "trending" things. Basically, I will try and find popular things and learn about them and blog about it. *Note: I'm not a very trendy person. Not even in that cool, old-fashioned, backwards way. 

-Erika's made me sound pretty amazing on her blog. She's an amazing writer, though, so I think this fact just amplifies her talent. 

On to the show!

Erika and I decided to make macarons. We were very excited, but we maybe should have seen the signs ahead of time--things weren't exactly going our way. To start things off, we couldn't find almond flour. We live in a small town, so chances were if one grocery store didn't have almond flour, none of them would and we would never be able to make macarons ever. Turns out we seemed to be blind specifically to almond flour, as we had been in the right aisle, looking at the right section, and it was just sitting there staring us straight in the face. We didn't even see it until the second trip to the aisle.

We bought our groceries, headed over to my house to pick up some necessary ingredients that I had, and headed on over to Erika's house. We had dinner. Had a nice conversation. Caught up. It was quaint and lovely. And then it ended.

Here's the recipe:

For macaron shells

• 1 cup almond flour
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 egg whites
• ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
• ¼ cup fine granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon lemon juice
• Yellow food coloring
For lemon buttercream
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teapsoon lemon zest
• ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
Instructions
1. In medium bowl, sift together almond flour and powdered sugar twice. Set aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl with whisk attachment, beat the egg whites on medium speed until foamy. Add cream of tartar and continue to beat. Slowly add sugar one tablespoon at a time. Increase the speed to medium high and beat until hard peaks. Add lemon zest, vanilla extract, lemon juice and yellow food coloring. Beat on medium speed for one more minute.
3. Sift the almond flour/powdered sugar mixture over the whipped egg whites. Gently fold the mixture running the spatula clockwise from the bottom, up around the sides and cut the batter in half, as shown in the video above. The batter will look very thick at first, but it will get thinner as you fold. Be careful not to over mix it though. Every so often test the batter to see if it reached the right consistency. To test the batter, drop a small amount of the batter and count to ten. If the edges of the ribbon are dissolved within ten seconds, then the batter is ready. I repeat, do NOT mix again. If you still see edges, fold the batter couple more times and test again. I posted a few pictures above to show you how just couple of folding changes the consistency of the batter. This step is so crucial, so please make sure to test often to ensure not to over mix the batter.
4. Transfer the batter into a pastry bag with a round tip.
5. Pipe out 1.5-inch rounds about an inch apart on prepared baking sheets.
6. Tap the baking sheets firmly on the counter a few times to get rid of any air bubbles. If you don’t release the air bubbles, they will expand during baking and crack the beautiful macarons shells. And who wants cracked macarons, right?
7. Let the macarons rest and dry for 15-30 minutes. On a humid day, it might take an hour or so. To see if it’s ready to be baked, lightly touch it. If the batter doesn’t stick to your finger, then it’s ready. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C).
8. Bake the macarons for 18-20 minutes. To check the doneness, remove one macaron. If the bottom does not stick, they are done.
9. Transfer to wire rack to cool for 15 minutes, and then remove from the baking sheets.
10. While macarons are drying, prepare the lemon buttercream. In a mixing bowl with whisk attachment, beat the butter until fluffy. Add powdered sugar, heavy cream, lemon juice, lemon zest, vanilla extract and salt and beat until well combined.
11. Transfer the buttercream into a pastry bag and fill the macarons.

We began by "sifting". The only thing is, Erika does not sift, or measure to a T as I do. There was a lot of guestimation as well as me silently crying inside. Okay, maybe not that silently. I made my opinion quite clear, rudely even. 

"sifting"

We also didn't read the recipe ahead of time. I had seen a few videos making macarons, and they described this unique method of making the thick batter a bit thinner--this recipe didn't use that and instead used a simple folding technique... We may have over folded. 

 

We piped them, let them set, and put 'em in the oven. They looked pretty legitimate!

...And yet, this is how they came out:

Smiley face!

Half-eaten "macaron"

 

Erika takes really good iPhone pictures

They came out ridiculously flat--but they were sweet, tangy, and deliciously chewy. The buttercream came out perfectly, though!

Look at how incredibly fluffy and delicious that looks. You probably can't see it. That's okay, it's hard to see. You're just going to have to trust me.

Did I mention I have a Fuji Instax 8? It's a polaroid/instant camera--and, apparently, I keep forgetting I have not told anyone about it... or very few people, as Erika did not know. I had brought it along to take beautiful pictures of our amazing macarons, which didn't exactly end up happening, but Erika took beautiful pictures of the one polaroid I did take.