Daring Bakers: Macarons

{Introduction}

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Did you know this month I've virtually baked nothing but macarons? In fact this whole month of October, I've been so intensely macaron-focused that I literally had numerous dreams about these French beauties. And as usual after much wishing that I had the cahonas to tackle these, it was the Daring Bakers who kicked my royal ass into action.

The funny thing is that I actually don't really eat macarons that much. I'd rather reach for a chunky chocolate chip cookie over a macaron frankly. Sadly, my obsession this month lies purely with making them rather than eating them.

Macarons are almost like an amateur baker's holy grail. The recipe seems simple enough and heck, it's only four ingredients! But les macaron is one fickle woman with many things that has to go right and if one inch of the process is 'off' then it spells macaron disaster. But it's a challenge for all to relish and one that we want to conquer.

For those that don't know, macarons are egg whites mixed with almond meal and icing sugar and baked into a sort of crispy but chewy meringue that is then sandwiched with a variety of creamy fillings - buttercream, ganache or creme patissiere. It's a much loved French specialty but a devil to get right.

{It's all about the feet}

Yep that's right, for the month of October, us Daring Bakers suffered from a bout of foot fetishism!

I'm sure some of you are thinking surely it can't be that hard? Essentially no but there's a lot to consider when it comes to prepping the ingredients and the technique. The ratio of egg whites to dry ingredients have to be spot on and they have to be whipped perfectly. Nor can you overfold or underfold the macaron batter. Then you have to contend with different oven personalites and determine how long to bake it. And lets not forget to age the egg whites, dry out the almond meal and process it with the sugar. Then of course, you'll have to make sure the stars are aligned correctly to Neptune.

You see, it's all about the feet.

A tell-tale sign of a good macaron is the little raised frill or 'foot' at the bottom of each shell. Top marks as well if your shells are perfectly raised, rounded and smooth. If the macaron isn't the most ridiculous form of validation of your baking prowess then I don't know what is!

The prized feet


Though I had grand plans for this month's challenge - wacky flavours, psychedelic colours - time got away from me as usual so it's all sweet and simple this month with a Chocolate and Hazelnut Macaron made with a hazelnut meal instead of almond and a Tea-flavoured Macaron with Ceylon and Assam. Both were filled with a chocolate ganache.

The challenge recipe was a failure to be brutally honest. The instructions were too vague and the recipe was simply too wet (didn't help also that the weight of egg whites wasn't specified). I had to add more almond meal and icing sugar to make it work. Also the 190°C written in the recipe was way too hot, which made my macarons brown way faster than it cooked! ! If you're a macaron first timer, this is definitely not the recipe for you so I'm not going to include it here (it'll be on the Daring Kitchen website).

The art of stacking macarons!

My tip is to use this recipe formula from Syrup and Tang for the French method of macaron, which gives you the formula to determine the weight of the dry ingredients based on the weight of the egg whites. It's also an essential guide to everything macaron and I suggest you give it a good read before you try it for the first time. For the baking, I highly recommend this oven method (cheers Audax for all his assistance this month!).

Bigger macarons tend to yield smaller feet than small macarons

Other essential reads:

• Tartelette (French method)
• Mélanger: To Mix (for the Italian method)

Bottom line is yes, they are tricky bastards to bake so prepare for a few failed batches, blue-sailor cursing and tears but do perservere because once you do become comfortable with making them, then the flavour possibilities are endless. Personally it's just plain old satisfying to go from cowering in the corner from a macaron recipe to dancing in the kitchen after a successful batch! And I've also learnt the grand art of macaron stacking for the purpose of photography. Yee ha!