the epic macaron adventure

Okay, maybe not ‘epic’, but after a third attempt in three days to make macarons, I am shrieking with joy – FOR I HAVE SUCCEEDED. But if you ask Yuki about it, he’ll testify for the epic mess that followed each baking experiment. Though I was arms deep in icing sugar, and perhaps my black sweater will never be the same again (somehow, it never occurs to me to wear appropriately coloured clothing or an apron when baking), I can now proudly say that I can make macarons.

Though now, I’m scared of making another batch in case it fails! I wasn’t exactly pinpoint precise with the successful batch, because I ran out of icing sugar and made up the difference with caster sugar, and mixed in about 10g of ground pistachios to the dry mix as well, because I lacked 10g more of almond powder! The end batter was also thicker than previous batches, and I had my doubts about whether they’d turn out well or not. Turns out, maybe macaronage isn’t as textbook as it seems!

I’d googled far and wide for all the macaron recipes and tips I could find. These included:

- The widely-referred to A La Cuisine (which is also where I got the Italian buttercream recipe from, more on that later!)

- The epic macaron post from Serious Eats (with links of its own to many macaron-related posts on the internetz)

- Coco&Me’s post on macarons (with many useful tips such as rapping the baking sheet on the counter to get rid of air bubbles in the batter)

- Tartlette’s post which inspired me to use ground pistachios!

- David Lebovitz’s experiment with chocolate macarons (I don’t dare attempt chocolate ones yet, which are apparently the most difficult to master!)was an enjoyable read.

And finally the two posts that were of most use to me:

- Veronica’s Test Kitchen – While in the end the successful batch of macarons didn’t use the recommended 24-48 hour-aged egg whites, it was a super interesting read and I think my failure owed more to inaccurate measuring and overmixing.

- Bernice’s Baking Journey – This was the simplest, no-frills method I’d seen yet! She dismisses the ideas of using aged egg whites, whipping them until stuff-peaks, and using a complicated method of mixing the batter… and her macarons are the best I’ve seen so far, and following the recipe nearly to a tee contributed to my success. So thanks, Bernice!

I am running out of time as I’m leaving for the airport to go to Hong Kong (will be there for the next 6 weeks!) so another entry will follow with the finished recipe (and perhaps a recount of the disasters preceding success!).