I had such a stupendous nap dreaming of nostalgic times with my grandpa. Now Im woken up, wide awake sleeping until never simply because my considerate fob only calls back whenever he 'feels like talking.' What a douchetit.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Saturday, August 4, 2012
The Forehead Wrinkles Guide to Making the Perfect Macaron
I won't say I've perfected the process, but I would like to believe I've at least gotten very close to making decent macarons. Alas, based solely on numerous webpage bookmarks, trialerror runs, and tears, I've come up with my own method. So here's my take on it..
There are two basic ways to make macs- the French or the Italian method. The French method is easier to do as you gradually pour the sugar in as the egg whites are whipping, but is also more prone to failure since the macaronage (folding the dry ingredients into the meringue) can be easily one fold too much and the mixture will flatten and your macs won’t rise. The Italian way involves melting the sugar with 50g water to a certain point in a pot first (involves a candy thermometer) and then gradually pouring it into the mixed egg whites. Because the sugar is cooked first, the Italian way is less prone to failed macarons, but will have more clean up, if you want to deal with that. This method leans a bit more to the French way.
What you’ll need:
-A gram scale (measure out all your ingredients beforehand to save time)
-Mixer with detachable whisks (hand or standing mixtures, as long as the speeds indicated)
-Food processor, or a really amazing blender that turns everything into fine powder
-Zip lock bags (for piping out the shells/ filling)
-Big mixing bowls
-Baking pan/ baking sheets
-Spatula
-Sifter
-Lots and lots and infinity amounts of patience
-A dood to help you wash the dishes because washing dishes sucks
for the macarons shells:
110g almond flour (crushed up almonds)
200g powdered sugar
90g aged egg whites (about 3 eggs)
30g fine granulated sugar
(for other flavors like chocolate- add 3 tbs of coco powder/ pistachio – add crushed up pistachios/ earl grey – 2 tea bags of earl grey/ lemon- minced lemon zest, etc)
Step 1- Split eggs for egg whites, set aside- then prepare your dry ingredients
1. Thoroughly mix together your almond flour and powdered sugar + any extra ingredients for flavor in a food processor. Sift several times until there are no more big lumps in it. The finer the mixture, the smoother your macs will be. Set aside.
Step 2- Making your meringue
Most recipes ask for you to “age your egg whites,” as in prepare your egg whites at least 24 hrs beforehand. This is to decrease the moisture in the whites so that your meringue will fluff up easily and will help the macs rise. You basically want as little water or moisture to be in this whole process; that includes folding it at the right amount, the more folds, the more air that is being folded out and thus the mixture becomes more watery. The wetter your mac mixture becomes, the harder it is to pipe out since it will spill everywhere and won’t keep a firm shape. So you get a lot of mitosis & meiosis looking macarons on your baking sheet and that’s a pretty depressing sight. But age no more! This different meringue method only requires you to have your eggs sit for an hour or two before, as long as it’s brought to room temp.
1. Dump sugar and egg whites in mixing bowl
2. Beat whites and sugar for 3 min at speed 4
3. Beat for 3 more min a speed 6
4. Beat for 3 more min at speed 8 (you can add color or flavoring at this point)
5. Beat for 1 min at speed 10
Your end result should be a very light and fluffy meringue. It will look like an ugly and lumpy white cloud (unless you added coloring), not like the normal stiff peak you get from usual recipes, a bec d’oiseau – bird’s beak. Basically you want to be able to beat it to the point where it holds together in a light mass and you could hold the whisk upside down and the foam won’t droop.
Step 3 – Dump all your dry ingredients into the meringue mixture bowl all at once
This is the part that most people dread. It’s the part where one extra fold of the ingredients will either make or break your macs. Just be really careful and have patience. It takes experience over time to know when to truly stop folding.
You want to fold your dry ingredients into your lumpy cloud by using the spatula to slide under, and then fold over. This will be one fold. Be sure not to press the dry ingredients into the cloud. It will slowly fold within itself eventually. This process should take around 50 folds, so count your folds. Stop yourself from folding anymore once you’ve hit that number. You should result in a “glossy, ribbon falling, lava like texture” where you could test it by spooning out the mixture and see that by 20 sec, it smoothes itself out and keeps its shape. NO MEIOSIS MUTATED MICKEY MOUSE LOOKING MACS! It’s always better to undermix than to overmix a batch.
Step 5 - Piping your macarons
Now that you’ve gotten the worst part over with, use the spatula to scoop the batch into a zip lock bag and cut off a tip (not too big). Pipe out the macs evenly to however big or small you’d like, at least 1.5-2 in apart. If undermixed, dip a finger with water and use it to lightly flatten down any peaks that haven’t flattened after being piped out.
Step 5 – Preheat your oven to 400 F and “tap” your macaron pan.
Lift the pan and drop the whole thing on a flat surface a few times. This will take out any air bubbles and also help flatten the macs.
Step 6 – The Baking Process
1. Place pan into preheated oven and immediately turn off. Prop two oven gloves at the corner of the door to let a little air escape. Bake for 6 min.
2. Turn on oven to 350F and bake for 3-4min (until you see the “feet” of the macaron)
3. Turn temp down to 250F and bake for 12 min
4. Turn off oven and leave tray in for a remaining 6-10 min depending on how big you made your macs (smaller macs would only bake for 6 min when bigger ones need longer time.
Yes this process is tedious, but apparently it has a pretty successful guarantee to perfect feet baked macarons. Wait until they’re fully cooled, arrange with same sized partners and sandwich a filling that you piped on. Fillings can be a variety of things from buttercreams, ganaches, or jams. Just as long as your filling is not too watery and can hold its shape so that when the mac is put to its side, it won’t slide apart or melt. I’ve found that ganaches make a suitable filling, but I’m still searching for the perfect one.
A perfect macaron should have even feet at the bottom, a smooth flat top, and a hard crunch surface, yet a melt in your mouth delicious center. You should be able to peel off the macarons cleanly from the baking sheet like you’re removing stickers. If the macs are still sticking to the sheet, that means they are underbaked. You can try to peel them off very carefully, turn them upside down and bake again for another few min in order to dry it out. This should do the trick.
After piping them together, you are practically done! Most macarons do not taste their best right away, in fact they taste better after they’ve “aged” about a day or two piped together. It helps mix the aromas of the filling with the cookie for a more intense flavor. That is why having the right filling is also important because in this aging process, you don’t want the filling to be so moist that it will soak right through your cookie and it will be all soggy and not good at all. That’s why I’ve found ganaches to be the best.
Well that's all folks. Now go get your man to do those dirty dishes and prop your feet down to relax after probably 4 hrs of non stop standing & hard work to make these fickle delicious turds. Don’t worry, time to make them will be faster as you gain experience. But practice practice practice and don’t be discouraged if the first batch turns into a sticky disgusting mess (this is coming from someone who simply just wasted everything and rolled her failed batches together to a little macaron snow man). Don't do that. Find a hungry citizen and give him your failed cookies instead or something. Good luck!
May the macaron gods be with you all.
There are two basic ways to make macs- the French or the Italian method. The French method is easier to do as you gradually pour the sugar in as the egg whites are whipping, but is also more prone to failure since the macaronage (folding the dry ingredients into the meringue) can be easily one fold too much and the mixture will flatten and your macs won’t rise. The Italian way involves melting the sugar with 50g water to a certain point in a pot first (involves a candy thermometer) and then gradually pouring it into the mixed egg whites. Because the sugar is cooked first, the Italian way is less prone to failed macarons, but will have more clean up, if you want to deal with that. This method leans a bit more to the French way.
What you’ll need:
-A gram scale (measure out all your ingredients beforehand to save time)
-Mixer with detachable whisks (hand or standing mixtures, as long as the speeds indicated)
-Food processor, or a really amazing blender that turns everything into fine powder
-Zip lock bags (for piping out the shells/ filling)
-Big mixing bowls
-Baking pan/ baking sheets
-Spatula
-Sifter
-Lots and lots and infinity amounts of patience
-A dood to help you wash the dishes because washing dishes sucks
for the macarons shells:
110g almond flour (crushed up almonds)
200g powdered sugar
90g aged egg whites (about 3 eggs)
30g fine granulated sugar
(for other flavors like chocolate- add 3 tbs of coco powder/ pistachio – add crushed up pistachios/ earl grey – 2 tea bags of earl grey/ lemon- minced lemon zest, etc)
Step 1- Split eggs for egg whites, set aside- then prepare your dry ingredients
1. Thoroughly mix together your almond flour and powdered sugar + any extra ingredients for flavor in a food processor. Sift several times until there are no more big lumps in it. The finer the mixture, the smoother your macs will be. Set aside.
Step 2- Making your meringue
Most recipes ask for you to “age your egg whites,” as in prepare your egg whites at least 24 hrs beforehand. This is to decrease the moisture in the whites so that your meringue will fluff up easily and will help the macs rise. You basically want as little water or moisture to be in this whole process; that includes folding it at the right amount, the more folds, the more air that is being folded out and thus the mixture becomes more watery. The wetter your mac mixture becomes, the harder it is to pipe out since it will spill everywhere and won’t keep a firm shape. So you get a lot of mitosis & meiosis looking macarons on your baking sheet and that’s a pretty depressing sight. But age no more! This different meringue method only requires you to have your eggs sit for an hour or two before, as long as it’s brought to room temp.
1. Dump sugar and egg whites in mixing bowl
2. Beat whites and sugar for 3 min at speed 4
3. Beat for 3 more min a speed 6
4. Beat for 3 more min at speed 8 (you can add color or flavoring at this point)
5. Beat for 1 min at speed 10
Your end result should be a very light and fluffy meringue. It will look like an ugly and lumpy white cloud (unless you added coloring), not like the normal stiff peak you get from usual recipes, a bec d’oiseau – bird’s beak. Basically you want to be able to beat it to the point where it holds together in a light mass and you could hold the whisk upside down and the foam won’t droop.
Step 3 – Dump all your dry ingredients into the meringue mixture bowl all at once
This is the part that most people dread. It’s the part where one extra fold of the ingredients will either make or break your macs. Just be really careful and have patience. It takes experience over time to know when to truly stop folding.
You want to fold your dry ingredients into your lumpy cloud by using the spatula to slide under, and then fold over. This will be one fold. Be sure not to press the dry ingredients into the cloud. It will slowly fold within itself eventually. This process should take around 50 folds, so count your folds. Stop yourself from folding anymore once you’ve hit that number. You should result in a “glossy, ribbon falling, lava like texture” where you could test it by spooning out the mixture and see that by 20 sec, it smoothes itself out and keeps its shape. NO MEIOSIS MUTATED MICKEY MOUSE LOOKING MACS! It’s always better to undermix than to overmix a batch.
Step 5 - Piping your macarons
Now that you’ve gotten the worst part over with, use the spatula to scoop the batch into a zip lock bag and cut off a tip (not too big). Pipe out the macs evenly to however big or small you’d like, at least 1.5-2 in apart. If undermixed, dip a finger with water and use it to lightly flatten down any peaks that haven’t flattened after being piped out.
Step 5 – Preheat your oven to 400 F and “tap” your macaron pan.
Lift the pan and drop the whole thing on a flat surface a few times. This will take out any air bubbles and also help flatten the macs.
Step 6 – The Baking Process
1. Place pan into preheated oven and immediately turn off. Prop two oven gloves at the corner of the door to let a little air escape. Bake for 6 min.
2. Turn on oven to 350F and bake for 3-4min (until you see the “feet” of the macaron)
3. Turn temp down to 250F and bake for 12 min
4. Turn off oven and leave tray in for a remaining 6-10 min depending on how big you made your macs (smaller macs would only bake for 6 min when bigger ones need longer time.
Yes this process is tedious, but apparently it has a pretty successful guarantee to perfect feet baked macarons. Wait until they’re fully cooled, arrange with same sized partners and sandwich a filling that you piped on. Fillings can be a variety of things from buttercreams, ganaches, or jams. Just as long as your filling is not too watery and can hold its shape so that when the mac is put to its side, it won’t slide apart or melt. I’ve found that ganaches make a suitable filling, but I’m still searching for the perfect one.
A perfect macaron should have even feet at the bottom, a smooth flat top, and a hard crunch surface, yet a melt in your mouth delicious center. You should be able to peel off the macarons cleanly from the baking sheet like you’re removing stickers. If the macs are still sticking to the sheet, that means they are underbaked. You can try to peel them off very carefully, turn them upside down and bake again for another few min in order to dry it out. This should do the trick.
After piping them together, you are practically done! Most macarons do not taste their best right away, in fact they taste better after they’ve “aged” about a day or two piped together. It helps mix the aromas of the filling with the cookie for a more intense flavor. That is why having the right filling is also important because in this aging process, you don’t want the filling to be so moist that it will soak right through your cookie and it will be all soggy and not good at all. That’s why I’ve found ganaches to be the best.
Well that's all folks. Now go get your man to do those dirty dishes and prop your feet down to relax after probably 4 hrs of non stop standing & hard work to make these fickle delicious turds. Don’t worry, time to make them will be faster as you gain experience. But practice practice practice and don’t be discouraged if the first batch turns into a sticky disgusting mess (this is coming from someone who simply just wasted everything and rolled her failed batches together to a little macaron snow man). Don't do that. Find a hungry citizen and give him your failed cookies instead or something. Good luck!
May the macaron gods be with you all.
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