Getting there

This time I resolved to make the improvement that I thought were needed, except having eggs in a bowl for a week - which I think is a bit unnecessary.

I weighed and sieved the icing sugar and the ground almonds. I noticed that the Lidl ground almonds had lots of bits of almonds left. I decided to weigh the mixture and found I was 25g short, of ground almond. No wonder my mixture wasn't exactly thick! I sieved more ground almond till I got to 25g and added it in.

The next part was ensuring the moisture was out of the icing sugar/ground almond mixture. I put it on a tray in the oven at 50C, stirring it up every now and then. The end result was a very fine powder almost like fluffy ash.

With the egg white, I decided I was going to beat those suckers into absolute submission. I kept going until these guys were crazy stiff, like I never saw before.

I also kept the kitchen nice and cold.

The result of all this was a macaron paste that was much thicker and didn't spread out all over the place when I piped them on to the tray.

When I cooked them in the oven I managed to get the foot, although they did sink down a bit. The taste was good though. Crunchy in the right places.

The next thing to get right is going to be the oven. My first batch was a little 'toasted' and went from white to tanned. I turned down the oven for the next batch and they were less tanned.

Overall, I feel this is a progression at least. I'll keep the macarons and check out the taste over the next couple of days.

Thoughts about over runny macaron mixture

I've been wondering about it and done a bit of research. My gut feeling is that it isn't related to damp almond flour/icing sugar, it isn't related to my eggs since I used old egg whites and it isn't related to the humidity of the house.

My feeling is that I used granulated sugar in the egg white instead of caster sugar. I'll give that a go and see what happens.

Here is an article on meringues from baking911. I'll give it a bit of time before I have another go. Not happy.

Marcaron mess

I attempted to make macarons yesterday and I also timed myself. From 0 to out of the oven was 1.5 hours. That's pretty quick. Unfortuately the results were not good.

The macaron mixture was tool liquid and runny, I could see that straight away. I can't understand why but I'll take a guess:

1. Kitchen was too warm.

2. Almond, icing sugar had too much moisture in it (this wasn't the case though).

3. When I sieved the almond, there was about 10g that didn't go through the sieve.

The resulting macarons were flat like thin biscuits and when i piped them they just spread out.

If someone can tell me where I've gone wrong please let me know....

kitchenAid Artisan Mixer

Off topic I know but what is it with the prices of KitchenAid mixers?

Prices shown in Euros:

US €172

UK €395

IE €399

Someone tell me that I've got it all wrong and that I'm choosing the wrong models (I looked up KitchenAid Artisan).

Does anyone have any ideas of how to get one of these closer to the US price without buying the US model and having to get a transformer.

Tips for making macarons

Following on from the Serious Eats post here are the tips that people have come up with:

1. Sift ingredients, no lumps. I would grind the icing sugar/almonds in an electric mixer and if necessary dry them in the oven beforehand.
2. Use old egg whites, cracked and left out of the fridge for 24-48 hours. They won't go off! This is supposed to be key to making a thick batter and so to getting the 'foot' large. Here's a reference to it at KitchenMusings. They also help develop a thicker, stronger 'shell'. Since moisture in the egg whites has a huge effect on the end product, leaving them out probably reduces the moisture. Apperently microwaving the egg whites for 10 secs has the same effect!
3. Fold in dry ingredients to egg whites in parts to not have a too runny a batter.
4. The beaten mixture should for peaks the dissolve back down, not too thick not too runny.
5. Use a double layer of parchment.
6. Place the tip of the pipe nozzle 1/2 inch above the parchment.
7. Slide the parchment off the tray and give it a quick spray of water and replace the parchment. The steam will help release the macarons.
8. Rest the macarons for a day before eating.

Macaron recipe

I've copied this great macaron recipe from Serious Eats.

Ingredients

225 grams icing sugar
125 grams ground almonds
110 grams egg whites (about 4), aged overnight at room temperature
30 grams granulated sugar
Pinch of salt

Procedure

1. On three pieces of parchment, use a pencil to draw 1-inch (2.5 cm) circles about 2 inches apart. Flip each sheet over and place each sheet on a baking sheet. [Note: You only have to draw circles on the parchment paper if you want absolutely even-sized macarons. If you're skilled with piping and don't mind eyeballing the amount of batter per cookie, skip this step.]

2. Push almond flour through a tamis or sieve, and sift icing sugar. Mix the almonds and icing sugar in a bowl and set aside. If the mixture is not dry, spread on a baking sheet, and heat in oven at the lowest setting until dry.

3. In a large clean, dry bowl whip egg whites with salt on medium speed until foamy. Increase the speed to high and gradually add granulated sugar. Continue to whip to stiff peaks—the whites should be firm and shiny.

4. With a flexible spatula, gently fold in icing sugar mixture into egg whites until completely incorporated. The mixture should be shiny and 'flow like magma.' When small peaks dissolve to a flat surface, stop mixing.

4. Fit a piping bag with a 3/8-inch (1 cm) round tip. Pipe the batter onto the baking sheets, in the previously drawn circles. Tap the underside of the baking sheet to remove air bubbles. Let dry at room temperature for 1 or 2 hours to allow skins to form.

5. Bake, in a 160C/325F oven for 10 to 11 minutes. Use a wooden spoon to keep the oven door slightly ajar, and rotate the baking sheet after 5 minutes for even baking.

6. Remove macarons from oven and transfer parchment to a cooling rack. When cool, slide a metal offset spatula or pairing knife underneath the macaron to remove from parchment.

7. Pair macarons of similar size, and pipe about 1/2 tsp of the filling onto one of the macarons. Sandwich macarons, and refrigerate to allow flavors to blend together. Bring back to room temperature before serving.

For my own convenience I'm made up a process that shows the steps visually:

Price of ground almonds

After having bought 200g shamrock ground almonds at over €4 per bag I found them in ALDI for half that. I did look up prices for ALDI in UK and found that they were just over £1 per 200g bag for the exact same product. If I was in the US I would buy it even cheaper at Honeyville. If anyone knows where you can buy bulk ground almonds please let me know.

Start of a plan to create macarons consistently

I really want to create macarons in time for Christmas. The good thing is they are not very time consuming but I've been really busy with work for the last while. I've made an initial plan to put together the information that I've gathered and summarise it so I can follow it again and again while I practise making macarons.

I made macarons twice in the kitchen and the results were fairly good but not great. Since then I've just bought the professional baking mats which will probably help. I've toyed with the idea of buying a KitchenAid mixer and going down the italian meringue route. Maybe Niall will be good enough to arrange it, we'll see what the costs of shipping from the US will be.

I first made the macarons in Cannes with another cooking fan Trevor and I was hooked.

Since then I've done some research on them and bought a book called Les Macarons de Christophe.

First step now is to write out something that I can follow again and again. Then to practice making them till I get it right.