In the beginning...

Peanut Butter macarons

 If you are anything like me, the first thought you will have after deciding to learn how to make macarons will be 'What flavours shall I make?'.

 In most macarons the flavour comes from the filling, even the most brightly coloured macarons usually have a basic almond macaron shell, the colour being a hint as to the delicious flavour that hides within. I decided that until I had mastered the basics of making the macaron shells I would keep the filling simple. a basic buttercream or jam filling will do to start with, or you could do what I did... Cheat! I bought a couple of tubs of Betty Crocker 'ready to spread' buttercream, one chocolate and one vanilla, it is a little sweet but its good enough to use for your first few batches so you can get to sample your handiwork with a bit less fuss. To be honest, you can fill your macarons with pretty much whatever you like. If you know how to make Swiss meringue buttercream or a rich chocolate ganache then feel free to use that instead. Personally I'm a bit hopeless when it comes to much more than a basic vanilla buttercream, although I can make a fairly simple ganache style chocolate buttercream, so my macaron fillings will be something of an ongoing experiment!

 I had originally intended to start my macaron making adventure with a basic almond macaron but as anyone who knows me will tell you, if I am ever given a choice I will always choose chocolate, I just can't help myself! The recipe I started with came from 'Step-by-Step Baking' (published by Dorling Kindersley), it has four simple macaron recipes which I have used as a starting point for all my macarons so far. They are based on the less complicated French meringue method, I will attempt the Italian meringue method at some point but for now I am happy with the results I have been getting so far. 

the first attempt... 

First batch - before baking

 I should warn you not to be disappointed if your first, second, third or even fourth attempts don't turn out as well as you hoped. As you can see from the photos of my first attempt that it wasn't exactly a success, they tasted great but they didn't look like macarons should. Despite all my reading of blogs and recipe books I didn't really know what my macaron batter should look like when it was ready for piping, I was so nervous about over mixing that as you can see from the photos that I ended up under mixing instead. The batter was thick and didn't spread out after piping which meant that the macarons weren't smooth when they were baked and they were cracked and had no feet.

First batch - after baking

 I tried one or two of the shells once they had cooled and they tasted great, I filled them with some Betty Crocker vanilla buttercream and most of them went into the fridge to rest overnight, a few did get eaten straightaway but they were definitely much better after being left to stand in the fridge overnight. this is one of the most difficult parts of macaron making, holding back and not eating them all straight away. The resting time allows the filling to soak into the macaron and soften the inside giving that lovely gooey texture you are aiming for.

...not quite right...

 My next (unofficial) attempt was a bit of a disaster, at least as far as macarons are concerned. Just as I had piped the mixture on to the baking trays I realised I had forgotten to add the sugar to the egg whites before mixing in the dry ingredients. I decided to bake them anyway and see how they turned out. They certainly weren't macarons, as you can see from the picture. They had a brownie like texture but still tasted pretty good, in fact, they tasted so good they were all eaten up before they had even cooled! Tasty, but not what I was aiming for... Lesson learned, don't be in such a hurry and always double check I've properly made my meringue before I add the nut mix!

...the second attempt...

...top tray in the oven...

 I had a bit more success with the next batch, although I did learn that I should only bake one tray at a time. I tried to bake two trays at once and although the top tray turned out perfectly, the bottom tray wasn't such a success, the macarons were badly cracked and had no feet. I'm still not entirely sure it wasn't just luck that the top tray turned out so well, despite having several successful batches with other flavours the chocolate macarons still trouble me. I'm fairly sure its all down to technique, having at least one (partially) successful batch makes me think the recipe is sound, I think its just going to take a lot of practise before I can say I've definitely mastered them. I have a couple of things I want to try when I next make chocolate macarons, I will be testing different amounts of cocoa in the macaron mix, maybe even eliminating the cocoa altogether with the filling being the sole source of the flavour. I will also test double panning, placing an extra baking tray underneath the one I am baking to see how that affects the baking process. Some macaron makers recommend double panning and this would explain why the top tray of batch#2 turned out well while later single trays turned out much like batch#1. 

...bottom tray in the oven...

 The important thing is to keep trying! Even 'ugly' macarons still taste good, as much as we all want to make the perfect looking macaron we really make them because we want to eat them! So, if at first (or second) you don't succeed, make another batch! Make notes, take photos, learn how to recognise an undermixed/overmixed macaron batter. Even if you realise you messed up somewhere, bake it! Every batch will teach you something new!

 Batch#1 was the only one so far where I used whites from fresh eggs. The eternal dilemma for all macaron enthusiasts is what to do with all the excess egg yolks. Theres only so much lemon curd you can eat so you need quite a repertoire of recipes that will use up all the egg yolks, so I was delighted to discover carton egg whites on the supermarket shelves. I wasn't sure how well the carton egg whites would work as it has added guar gum (to stabilise the whites and aid whisking) but I thought I would at least give it a try.

 

Carton egg whites

 I have had some really good results with my later batches (more about these in future posts) using the carton egg whites so I actually prefer to use these if I can get them. Check out here to find a stockist near you. I will try fresh eggs again, I've been building up a collection of recipes for egg yolks so as I try them I will experiment with fresh eggs and try ageing the whites to see if there is any major difference to carton egg whites.

 After my semi-successful second batch I was filled with enthusiasm and just wanted to make more to see if I could replicate the results I got from that one good tray, unfortunately my cupboard was empty of almonds...so I got a bit experimental! Remembering Brave Tart's advice that you can make macarons from just about any nut you like I set about grinding up some walnuts and pistachios I had in my cupboard. The pistachios ground up really well, because of the oil content the walnuts ground up into a smooth mush. I pushed the nuts through a sieve to make sure they were ground finely enough, the pistachios were very finely ground and, despite the mushy consistency, the walnuts perfectly ground!

walnut macarons
 ...fresh out of the oven

 Any worries I had about the walnuts soon disappeared, once mixed with the icing sugar in a food processor the consistency was pretty similar to the consistency of the almond sugar mix. I didn't have any suitable food colouring so I knew the macarons would turn out quite pale but I was really only interested in how well the macarons would bake. I wasn't disappointed, both batches turned out looking amazing.

pistachio macarons

...pale but delicious

 Both had smooth tops and lovely little feet, although the walnut ones were slightly mottled in appearance and were slightly hollow inside. I'm not sure yet whether this was a consequence of the oiliness of the nut or because the nuts themselves were a little old, I had them in the cupboard since making xmas cakes a few months before. They were delicious though.

walnut macarons

...filled with coffee buttercream

 I filled the pistachio macarons with a little vanilla buttercream with ground pistachios mixed in, the walnut macarons I filled with buttercream with a little ground up instant coffee mixed into it. I was really pleased with how well these two batches turned out, much better than I could have hoped. I have to admit I did a little happy dance when I took them out of the oven! I've done a bit more experimentation with other nuts and I've also been playing around with different food colourings and different flavours for the fillings which I will write more about later. 

I think its safe to say I am slightly obsessed with macarons now. I have lots of ideas for flavourings and I'll write about my experiments as I go.

 Coming soon... 'If I can do it, so can you!'...my macaron recipe and a step by step guide in how to get started making your own macarons!

Where to begin....?

 my first successful batch of macarons

 I had heard of macarons quite a while before I actually managed to taste one. Mostly what I heard was how difficult they are to make, how utterly delicious they are and got the impression that to be able to succeed at making macarons you had to be a truly talented pastry chef. It was all quite intimidating. And mostly wrong, apart from the bit about them being delicious!


 My first taste of macarons was while on holiday in South Africa, we stumbled upon a tiny cake shop hidden away in a corner of Cape Town, we were treating ourselves to some delicious cakes when I saw I display of macarons on the counter. There were six rows of brightly coloured little macarons and they looked so perfect! As I was stood there drooling the lovely lady in the shop asked me if I wanted to try one, well how could I say no! It was delicious! I'm still not sure how I ended up still buying cake instead of clearing the shop of their supply of macarons! It was a while again before my next taste of macarons, a tiny chocolate example which was part of a delicious chocolate dessert I had at Michael Caines restaurant at ABode in Manchester. All the desserts on the menu had looked delicious but when I saw the chocolate dessert had a macaron I just knew that was what I was going to have and it didn't disappoint. In fact the macaron was the best part of the whole dish and was quite possibly the start of what is likely to be a life long love affair with macarons.

 At first my interest bordered on obsession, trying to find anywhere in Manchester that sold these little delights. Not an easy task! I can tell you now that if you don't fancy making your own there are one or two places to get your fix. Marks & Spencer currently have 'macaroons' in their dessert range and to be honest they're not bad, they even had a special jubilee edition pack which was particularly tasty. Even better though are the macarons I have tasted from 'English Rose Bakery' based in Manchester. You can get them from Selfridges in the Trafford Centre, although the quality is a bit hit and miss, I suspect more down to Selfridges handling of the macarons than anything in the macarons themselves. One thing I have learned from my search for a macaron fix was to be wary of anything too 'packaged', mass produced macarons with long sell by dates and, in my case, a packet saying 'made in Belgium' roughly translates to macarons made a lot longer ago than the day before and macarons are best eaten a day after being baked and filled. 
The best macarons I have ever tasted, and most macaron lovers would agree I think, come from Ladurée. I was lucky enough to find myself in London recently and being near Covent Garden I just had to try some Ladurée macarons. Oh my word, they are awesome! The only ones I have tasted that I don't really mind the expense of buying them, they are definitely worth it. I'm off to London again later this year so you can bet I will make sure I get a quick trip to Ladurée to treat myself to some of their more exotic flavours! One day I hope to go to Paris, I'm ashamed to say I've never been, and hopefully try at least one from every patisserie I can find! Until then...


 I got to thinking about having a go at making macarons myself. I did a lot of reading, searching out recipes in books and online, and the more I read the more intimidated I became and the more convinced I was that I would never be able to tackle the tricky little macaron. Then I found 'BraveTart', a blog about the amazing Stella Parks and her baking antics. Her posts about macarons are truly inspiring as you can see from the many comments on her posts, these two posts http://bravetart.com/blog/MacaronMyths and http://bravetart.com/blog/TheTenCommandments are particularly helpful to any want-to-be macaron baker. As you can see in this post http://bravetart.com/blog/EatMacarons, I'm not the only one that finds Stella truly inspiring! I'm not going to repeat all of Stella's advice here but I do recommend that everyone read her macaron posts before having a go, you'll find yourself feeling quite liberated!
So, with an armful of cookbooks in hand, including Pierre Hermé's 'Macarons', and all of the advice and recipes on 'BraveTart', I decided it was time to have a go!

It's probably important to mention that there are two methods for making macarons, the more complicated Italian meringue method which involves hot sugar syrup being whisked into the egg whites, and the simpler French meringue method which involves whisking granulated sugar into the egg whites. I decided to keep things simple at first and chose a recipe from Dorling Kindersley 'Step-by-Step Baking', there are four macaron recipes in this book, all of which use the french meringue method. being a complete chocolate addict I decided to give the chocolate macarons a try! I had a whole weekend to play with macarons so I had a few attempts, half expecting the entire weekend to be a total disaster but on my third attempt I felt like I had hit the jackpot, one tray of macarons came out absolutely perfect. Smooth tops, perfect little feet and so tasty! Just take a look at the photo and you will see!

 I'll write more in detail later about the ups and downs, and what I learned in those first few batches later. I plan to make a lot of macarons, I have a lot of ideas for flavours and themes. In each post I will give you the recipes I used and the little tweaks I made so you can try the original recipe yourself as well as my version. I like to bake lots of other sweet treats too so don't be too surprised if the occasional cake or pastry finds its way on here too!