Macarons: What I Have Learned So Far

I started my macaron lesson by making the almond macarons with ganache filling in Desserts Magazine. Helen makes the recipe very easy, and with a couple tips I learned along the way, I was able to produce the darlings shown here in two attempts. Here is what I have learned so far:

Sift your ground almonds. I made my own almond meal by chopping almonds up in my food processor. This produces about 90% almond meal and about 10% almond pebbles. If you don't sift the pebbles out then you don't get the desired fine texture. Alternatively, you can buy almond meal at a Whole Food type markets.

Use a template under your parchment paper. Because macarons are sandwiched together, it is helpful to have them uniform in shape. Some bakers draw circles on their parchment paper and then pipe onto the reverse side of the paper. I prefer to use a template of smiley faces created on a computer. I slip the smiley face template under the parchment paper and then pipe away. I like my smiley faces about an inch in a half each for this recipe. I use two templates on each half sheet cookie sheet.



You need to deflate the batter a bit. To achieve macarons with the prefect little hat tops, the batter needs to form round discs as you pipe. If you don't deflate the batter then you will have more almond meringue kisses than macarons. To achieve the right batter consistency, I used by Kitchenaid's paddle attachment on low speed for about 30-45 seconds. If you have a strong arm you can deflate the batter manually with about 50-65 strokes. You know you have reached the desired consistency when a drop of batter flattens on its own when dropped onto a plate. I gently taped the cookie sheets of piped batter on the counter twice to help smooth out the batter. Use caution not to flatten the batter too much -- if you do your discs won't raise.

I am off to make another macaron recipe but I am glad that we had a couple minutes to discuss with my results so far.