French Macarons anyone? Who doesn’t love a macaron. This recipe is amazing, as luscious as if from a French Patisserie!
French Macarons Recipe
Ingredients:
1 cup icing sugar (125g or 4½ oz)
1 cup ground almonds (125g or 4½ oz)
3 large eggs – egg whites only (90g or 3½ oz)
2 tbsp water
1 cup caster sugar (110g or 4oz)
food colouring (optional)
150ml or 5fl oz double or whipped cream, whipped
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 170C or 325 F and prepare a baking tray lined with baking paper.
Using a large bowl, add the icing sugar, ground almonds and 40g (1½ oz) egg whites and stir it until it turns to a paste like consistency.
In a small pot, pour water and caster sugar. Over low heat, melt the sugar. Once it melts, adjust heat to medium and boil until the mixture starts to thicken. Note: I don’t have a thermometer too..but just in case you’re using, it should read 115C/239F at this stage.
With an electric mixer, beat the remaining 50g/2oz egg whites in a small bowl until medium-stiff peaks form. Then pour in the sugar syrup, keep beating until the mixture becomes stiff and shiny.
For coloured macarons, add a few drops of food colouring. Next, fold this meringue mixture into the almond paste mixture and combine gently until the mixture becomes stiff and shiny.
Transfer and scoop the mixture into the piping bag. Start piping a little mixture under each corner of the baking paper to stop it sliding around.
With the bag held vertically, pipe 4cm/1½in flat circles onto the lined tray, about 2cm/¾in apart. Twist the bag after each one. The mixture should be quite loose to give a smooth finish. The piping will leave a small ‘tip’ on each circle so. Just tap the tray after when they’re all piped to flatten the tip on each circle.
Leave it sit for 30 minutes to form a skin then bake in the oven for 12–15 minutes with the door slightly ajar until firm. Remove from the oven, lift the paper off the baking tray and leave the macaroons to cool on the paper.
When cool, sandwich the macarons together with whipped cream or you can use lemon curd for the yellow macarons, and strawberry jam, for the red macarons.
I like the yellow macarons, because I enjoy the touch of sour of the lemon, so perfect for the sweet french macarons.
Serve and enjoy!
