Macarons!

 Ok, I said I would share our adventure of making macarons, so here it is!

It took me a long time to prepare for this baking adventure, because I had heard how finicky macarons are to make. First off, I had to learn that there is a difference between "macarons" and "macaroons."

A macaron (mac-a-ROHN) is a French cookie made from meringue and almond flour.  (Technically it's two cookies sandwiched around buttercream frosting.)

 

A macaroon (mac-A-roon) is made with egg white and coconut, typically dipped in chocolate.

((Photos borrowed from https://www.maclabbakery.com/products/lavender-honey and https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a52234/ultimate-macaroons-recipe/ ))

Next, I had to find out all the tips and tricks I could to making macarons come out tasty and beautiful! I watched a lot of YouTube videos and read a lot of blogs and recipes. I learned that you want to "age" your egg whites in advance. I learned there is a certain time when you want to add the cream of tartar to the egg whites, and that you should use a very fine granulated sugar in the meringue. I learned that it's necessary to process the almond flour in a food processor and sift it to make sure its ultra-fine. I learned that when piping the cookies, you need to do it at a ninety degree angle to keep them from flopping over when they bake. And I learned that macarons taste best after they have been kept in the fridge for a few days.

So, here is our adventure! :)

Start off with a selfie, because after all the work of making the cookies, I knew we wouldn't be in the mood to take fun pictures. ;) :D

And of course, we never take just one selfie...we take a whole bunch in a row so we can pick our favorites later. :D

Becca insisted on having ALL of the measuring cups out, just in case. :) Then we processed the almond flour with the powdered sugar and sifted them...it took a LONG time! Most recipes recommended that we do this step three times (process, sift, process, sift, process, sift). It took us about an hour to do it the first time, so we decided that was enough for us! :-p

Next we start whipping the egg whites. It doesn't look like it'll be enough...

And it takes such a long time, even with a stand mixer to do most of the work! But adding the purple food coloring was fun! And we had to sprinkle in the sugar very slowly, as well.

Finally, we have made the stiff meringue!

It looks so pretty!!! :) (And so does she!)

Now we mix and mix - gently, but for quite a long time. Both of our arms were sore when we finally got it mixed to the right consistency.

Piping also takes a long time, and a lot of finesse (which we didn't have...). :D We piped all different sizes, which made them bake unevenly, so we got a lot of very crisp small cookies, and a few under-baked larger cookies.

And after being baked, a lot of the tops cracked because I had used a tiny bit of water to smooth the tops, but I guess I had too much water on some of them, which caused them to be brittle and collapse.

We shared a few of our better cookies with some friends (please don't be offended if you didn't get any, there really were not many to share...). Becca was so proud to be able to do "grown up things" like deliver cookies by herself. :)

There it is! Our adventure of making macarons! It was a lot of work, but we did have fun. In the end, I can see why these yummy treats are not widely available...they are a pain to make! I don't know if I will attempt them again, but we'll see... Oh, and here is the recipe that we used: https://preppykitchen.com/french-macarons/  We cheated at the end and just used store-bought butter cream frosting instead of making our own. And we were so exhausted that I forgot to take pictures of the completed cookies... Oh well!

Happy New Year, from our family to yours!