Macarons. Where do I start? Up until last week I'd never had one. But I certainly had a craving. I remember seeing the contestants on Masterchef struggle with them and thinking I wanted to have a go. And finally two weekends ago now, I had an inkling to bake and some time up my sleeve.I used a Donna Hay recipe for the Macaron and a Gourmet Traveller ganache recipe.
Some tips, an Australian 20c piece is a pretty good size indicator for macaroons. I traced this onto the baking paper, but be sure to pipe onto the non penciled side or your biscuits will have pencil on them!
- Apparently older egg whites are better than fresh.
- The biscuits without ganache kept well for a week in an air tight container.
- This recipe says it makes 10 complete biscuits - it made far more for me.
Onto the recipe
Ingredients
• 1 cup almond meal • 2 cups icing sugar • 1 tbs plain flour • 4 egg whites • 2 tbs caster sugar
To bake
Heat the oven to 160C/320F (not fan forced). Sift together the almond meal, icing sugar and flour. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Add the caster sugar and beat until smooth. Stir in the almond meal mixture until smooth.
Pipe onto trays lined with baking paper (note: the mixture will spread, so smaller may be better) and bake for 12-14 mins. Cool and then sandwich with ganache.
White Chocolate & Raspberry Ganache
• 50ml pouring cream • 100g white chocolate •45g frozen raspberries, pushed through a sieve
• pink food colouring - optional.
Bring cream just to the boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat, add chocolate, stand until melted (5 minutes), stir until smooth and glossy. Cool slightly and add raspberries. Cool further. Pipe mix or use a teaspoon to add ganache to one side of biscuit then sandwich together gently. Macarons will keep for 1-2 days refrigerated in an airtight container.
These were a delicious sweet treat, I got the thumbs up from 12 taste testers who said they enjoyed them. I'm not too sure how they stack up against others (might have to investigate!) They did develop a shell that was a little hollow, but did retain some chewiness.
5 comments:
How fabulous! A tried and tested macaron recipe, yum yum. I will be trying this recipe xx
Oh wow you made some too! Yours look great and a much better colour too! That ganache sounds yum, I just made vanilla buttercream (boring). The recipe I used only had three egg whites, I was going to make some rhubarb and custard tarts (from the new jamie mag) with the yolks but I ran out of time...
Oh wow! I'm so impressed! I rarely tackle any kind of dessert in my kitchen adventures.
Wow Casie, I am very impressed - everyone is making macarons at the moment, I may just have to join in the fun! I think i read that macarons are notoriously difficult to get right, so many things to go wrong but they look delicious!
I've made macarons from a Womens' Weekly recipe, but made HEAPS of mistakes. Yours look terrific. Have bookmarked this post for when I try again!
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