French Macaroons - a re-trial

Hi and welcome back to Tasty treats!! After my epic failure (just in the looks, that is!!) with french macaroons for the Daring Baker challenge, I was determined to make some "good-looking macaroons which can be seen all over the blogosphere - those cute, little, round, puffed-up thingies with cute lil "feet". I should say again that the DB recipe yielded deelicious results, but the looks didnt work out for me, neither did the absence of feet!

I was determined to try Helen's recipe which gave success to a lot of Daring Bakers after their failure with the challenge recipe. I also came across Bonbini! another awesome blog which featured tons of different french macaroons. So I decided to go with her recipe which seemed really simple and straight forward without scaring an amateur like me! Read on to know more about my attempt.

I decided to use "Egg beaters 100% egg whites" for my french macaroon trials. I test whipped some cold egg whites and even those whipped up beautifully. So I left the required amount of egg whites uncovered, at room temperature, overnight. The almond flour was ground at home with blanched almond slivers in a food processor with the specified amount of sugar so that the almonds dont get moist. The flour was sifted so as to make sure that the flour was really fine.

I followed all the recipe instructions. I tinted the batter pink and didnt add any food flavoring.
The italian meringue technique by making the sugar syrup was also not complicated. But I didnt have a candy thermometer so I just went with an approximate time. The actual mistake that I made probably was that I didnt add the slightly cooled syrup slowly, but added them more or less altogether. So it took me a long time to whip the egg whites back to soft peak stage. Even after whipping for a long time I couldnt bring the egg whites to a confident soft peak stage. (I am thinking its either because I didnt use the thermometer, maybe I didnt give enough time for the syrup to cook into a more concentrated form or because I didnt add the syrup slow enough).

But still the whites whipped up to kind of a soft peak stage (was gradually getting to the whipped stage). So I decided not to add the whole meringue, but added half of the meringue to the almond flour "mass". The final texture of the batter was just as described in the DB challenge. When I piped the batter, it didnt spread out (as it had happened to me in the challenge) and I knew probably I am on the right path!!

Well, I guee everything turned out fine and these are what I ended up with. The cute lil feet, the smooth and shiny top and the crisp on the outside - chewy on the inside cookies!! Finally I get what all the rave is about!! This recipe gave me the confidence to tackle more french macaroon recipes! I am really thankful to Thip of Bonbini for sharing her recipe with us.....

VERDICT:

The recipe was really easy to follow. The taste was amazing, the texture and looks matching the description of succesful french macaroons!!! I sandwiched a few of them with chocolate ganache. But honestly, they are amazing on their own. The filling would make them a little more sweet than I would prefer. Next time I would like to make macaroons that are a little bit smaller (diameter), so that they will look like cute little colored puffy balls!!!

Guess what, I also baked the whipped Italian meringue without the almond flour "mass" and made these melt in your mouth meringue rounds/cookies!! They were delicious and literally melted in our mouths!!

I am really happy that I decided to attempt the French Macaroons again! Try these out and I am sure you wouldnt be disappointed. Thank you for visiting Tasty treats!!

Have a great week!