Pretty Little Macarons - I Didn't Expect It To Be A Finger String Game

So the whole wide world of The Macaron has been opened to me..... the gazillion different "this is the one!" recipes, the websites and YouTube videos, and the Facebook pages. I formulated a loose plan and tried to shrink the world down to a manageable bite sized piece. Still substantial. Which recipe to try first out of the few I had chosen? Whose advice to take on which of those recipes was best? As all were having success with particular recipes, but had known failure with the others. Remember those string finger games? Like cat's cradle and the like? A confused chaotic looking mess, yet if done correctly they came together perfectly. Yeah, it's like that. Choosing the right recipe for you, having the correct ingredients in the perfect condition, the weather (or a dehumidifier) cooperating, and your oven calibrated to the n'th degree. Oh - and the right advice. That is big.

So - choose the recipe. My first go 'round I went rouge. I picked a recipe that was not on any recommended list for French macarons. It was one I found on my own and it felt intuitively right to me. I liked the author, he seemed to know his stuff, and the recipe seemed legit (what do I know? Ha!). I dutifully aged my egg whites. I ground down my granulated sugar in my food processor. I weighed everything very carefully to the gram. I was sure to have the extra fine almond flour on hand. And to sift, sift, sift some more my flour and confectioners sugar together. My meringue with cream of tartar was lovely (or so I thought - it was how I always make it, big mistake I learned), and I started the process of "macaronage" - incorporating the dry ingredients into the meringue. A very tricky endeavor indeed.

This is where many macaroners fail. Under mix - you fail. Over mix - you fail. Through very careful folding, then subsequent smushing the batter against the side of the bowl to get any extra air out (I dunno either why we must be gentle as a kitten just to rough it up) you are supposed to be able to hit the sweet spot. Wherein you can pick up the spatula and the batter will lava on off in a ribbon of coolness, and you can supposedly make the number "8" a few times with the batter. Well, not "supposedly" as I've seen it done, just not in person. I'm sure it is beautiful to behold in person. But I digress.

Once you are there.........off to the piping bag and pan you go, to be banged repeatedly on the counter to release more air. Then there the mac's sit. To form a skin. This skin is what helps to create the foot - that lovely rough edge around the cookie. My first time I had such hope at this point. Oh the naivete. I knew the batter dripped out of the piping bag too fast, and I never could get the elusive "8." Signs that I both over mixed and under mixed. Go figure. So SOMETHING unwanted was going to come out of the oven at the end of those 16 minutes.

And, indeed, it did. Pretty pink, flat, wrinkled, macarons. Over mixed.*sigh*

Ok - chalk it up to Try #1! I had how many to go I figured?? Many? One more? Who knew? I was properly intimidated now. The girls from Facebook who were on Try #17 didn't seem to be "oh that's not gonna be me" any longer. I got my egg whites ready so they'd be properly aged, so I could give it another go tomorrow.

This time I used the most popular and seemingly most successful recipe (adventurous I am, but I can also admit intuitive defeat). I went through the whole process again. This time throwing in a few prayers for good measure.

Again --- no ribbon of lava. No mysterious "8." What the %$#&!? I even adjusted my perfect meringue to be just at the meringue stage

so the least amount of air was pumped into it. I smushed and smashed that batter against the side, but still could NOT get that "8." But fearing over mixing again I stopped when I felt it was mixed just enough. (Hey, I never said I gave up my intuition completely!) Bagged 'em, banged 'em, set 'em, baked 'em -- and you know what?? Macaron perfection!

Happy day!! All without the elusive and mysterious ribbon of "8."

Now the trick is, doing it again....and again..... I have a cupcake/cake pop order this week, so another round of mac's is next week's project. 50% of the ingredients of this batch will be just as the second batch - prayers!

#Macarons #macaronfail #Frenchmacaron #bakingmacarons