After some suggestions on chat, I decided to post my recipe for French Macarons. I make them often as my whole family loves them but they are very expensive, with costs ranging from $1.50-$2.75 per macaron. I have started a very small business making them for birthday parties, tea parties, wedding and baby showers, ,etc. Maybe you can learn to master them too and make some extra Disney money. I find people love to buy them for events because:
- they are kind of like the new “it” dessert, replacing the cupcake, which was the “it” dessert of 2012/2013 (we all know what happened to Crumbs cupcake bakery chain!) So people are looking for something new.
- they seem intimidating to make for most people, so instead of a cookie or brownie that most people make at home, people tend to buy them.
- even though they are starting to pop up in main stream bakeries, the macaron can still be hard to find for some
- they are so darn cute and irresistible
So whether you want to impress friends and family, make some cool teacher’s gifts, or make a lil extra $, follow along!
I would like to start off with just a few points before I post the recipe.
- When making macarons, the ingredient list is small and the number of recipe steps are few, however, the technique is very important.
- After I post the recipe, I will put some tips right after it to help with the technique
- More than likely, it will take a few tries to get them right
- Those coconut American macaroons are spelled with two letter o’s and the french macaron is spelled with only o.
- This is the basic recipe for the french macaron cookie only. I will post some ideas and recipes for the filling. Traditionally, the various flavors come from the filling and the cookie part is just colored. However, there are some diff ways to flavor the actual cookie part. I will post that in future if someone was interested.
Ingredients
3/4 cup Almond Flour (Trader Joe’s has a cheap one as well as many varieties in the regular Supermarket)
1 cup powdered sugar
2 egg whites that have been at room temperature for 2 hours
4 Tbs of granulated sugar
- Sift together the Almond Flour and powdered sugar. This step is absolutely necessary. I wouldn’t even bother making them if you do not do this step. I found the best sifter is one of those cheap ones like above from Target, etc. The sifter like the one below DOES NOT work well for this recipe. The skin remnants from the almonds in the almond flour will clog the sifter making it impossible to clean . Trust me on this one!
PRE-HEAT OVEN TO 325
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Whisk 2 egg whites for 2 mins till frothy using a whisk attachment on LOW speed on your mixer or hand held mixer (good luck with the handheld, lol). Frothy egg whites (below) will have tons of little bubbles and still very loose mixture.
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Turn the mixer up to MEDIUM for the next 2 minutes adding the 4 Tbs. sugar, but adding only Tbs at a time.
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Turn the mixer up to HIGH until stiff peaks are formed. Stiff peaks are shiny and stand erect without toppling over when you take a dollop onto a whisk.
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FOLD the egg whites into the almond powder/sugar mixture. Here is where you would add food coloring to color the macaron cookie to your liking. This step cannot be rushed and will take a few mins but don’t mix it! Folding it is key or your macarons will not be macarons! This is what it will look like after the folding is done.
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Put mixture into piping bag or ziploc bag. I put bag into cup for easy filling.
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Use a round piping tip on end of bag.
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Put a sheet of parchment paper ( an absolute must!!!) onto baking sheet and pipe dime to quarter sized dollops onto parchment paper. There are “cheats” that you can use to equally pipe the mixture out. They look like this and can be googled and printed. When I first started out, I used these. They are called macaron templates. Slip under the parchment paper and this is very imp REMOVE THE TEMPLATES BEFORE BAKING!!!
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This step is absolutely crucial and cannot be skipped or rushed. Take the baking pan and tap tray on counter to get any air bubles out. Let the macarons sit on counter for 30 mins and rest away from heat and develop a skin.
10.Turn down oven to 300 and put macarons in oven for 8 mins on top or bottom rack but not middle. Open oven and let some air waft out to release moisture. Turn cookie sheet around 180 degrees and let cook for another 8 mins.
Let cookies cool COMPLETELY before even thinking of adding any filling. The cookies will have what are called “feet” on the bottom when cooked correctly.
The fillings are endless. The color combos are endless. Sometimes, a monochromatic color works throughout the filling and sometimes a color contrast is cool too.
If you come across any problems when making these, let me know and I can help you troubleshoot as I have come across every problem possible!
If you are interested in me posting any recipes for the fillings, let me know!!!
