With a little patience, and a few tips and tricks, you can make easy macarons in your own kitchen!
Course
Dessert
Cuisine
French
Prep Time1hour20minutes
Cook Time20minutes
Total Time1hour40minutes
Servings36macarons
AuthorErin Brighton
Ingredients
1 1/3cupspowdered sugar
2/3cupalmond flour
1/4cupgranulated sugar
3egg whites, room temperature
1/2teaspooncream of tartar
1teaspoonvanilla extract
A few drops of food coloring(optional)
Jam or chocolate ganache for filling
Instructions
Sift the flour and powdered sugar
In a medium sized bowl, measure out the almond flour and the powdered sugar.
Using a sieve, gently sift the flour and powdered sugar into another bowl. You should have about 2 tablespoons or so of almond chunks left over in the sieve when you are finished.
Whip the egg whites
In a stand mixer, whip the three egg whites on a low speed until the egg whites are frothy.
Gradually add the 1/4 cup of granulated sugar and cream of tartar.
Turn the mixer to high and whip on high until the egg whites form stiff peaks. You know have stiff peaks if the egg whites point straight up without sinking back down. As the egg whites have almost reached stiff peaks, add the vanilla and the food coloring.
Combine the ingredients
Remove the mixing bowl from the stand mixer.
Fold half of the almond sugar mixture into the egg whites using a rubber spatula and then gently fold the other half in. Stir the batter firmly in complete circles around the bowl at least twenty times. Your arm should get tired.
Your batter is ready to be piped when it is the consistency of peanut butter. You want the batter to gently fall off the spatula.
Pipe the macarons
Using a gallon sized storage bag or your Lekue macaron piper, pipe one inch sized macarons onto your mat. Don't let them get too big! If you are using the Lekue mat, you want your batter to fill the whole circle - don't just fill the center circle.
Let the sheet of macarons sit for about an hour. You want the macarons to be almost dry to the touch on the top so that the tops are shiny when you cook them.
Cook the macarons
We used the convection function on our oven and cooked the macarons at 350 degrees for 18 - 20 minutes. The macarons should rise a bit and have shiny tops. Halfway through cooking, I turned the pan around and put it on a lower shelf. I am nervous about giving specific cooking instructions because ovens vary so much but this timing was perfect for us.
Let the macarons rest on the mat until they are completely cooled and then gently peel the macarons from the mat. You might want to use a butter knife or a frosting spatula to help gently lift the macaron so nothing sticks to the mat.
Fill the macarons
Fill the macarons with strained jam, chocolate ganache or anything you wish. We made a few different types of fillings to experiment and they all were good.