Macaroon Monday Success!
As I embarked on my Macaroon Monday baking adventure, I realized something: I’ve never actually eaten a ‘real’ macaroon. Which is to say I’m not 100% sure what they are supposed to taste like. But I do know what they are supposed to look like and what texture they should have, and mine seemed pretty close. And if my macaroons are anything close to the real deal, then I imagine real macaroons are fantastic!
Knowing how tricky macaroons can be, I chose a well-tested recipe for my experiment. I followed Ms. Humble’s tutorial and recipe, with a few tips from Joe Pastry thrown in. What can I say? The nerd in me likes the food science they included in their posts to back up their information. 
A lot of sources say to age the egg whites overnight, but I only let mine sit at room temperature for 4 or 5 hours. I’m not sure it made a lot of difference in the final product, so I may need to do some further experimenting someday…
Keys to Macaroon Success:
- In your food processor, pulse your almonds into meal before combining with the powdered sugar.
- When you are turning your almonds into almond meal, be careful not to take it too far. As much as I love almond butter, it would not make for a good macaron!
- Use a sieve to get the bigger almond chunks out of the powdered sugar & almond mixture. Unfortunately, I don’t have a sieve…see the challenges section below.
- Before you do anything else, measure out all of your ingredients.
- Getting to the meringue stage takes some time. Be patient.
- Adding a few drops of food coloring in the folding stage will give you uniquely-colored macarons.
- Play with your fillings. It is the easiest part of the macaroon to play around with by far. I used both a chocolate ganache and a cherry butter filling.
Macaroon Monday Challenges:
1. Some of the tops of my macaroons cracked. According to Joe Pastry, this could be due either to undermixing or too much moisture/air in the batter. Since only some of them cracked and the insides seemed chewy, I think moisture was the culprit.
2. I don’t have a sieve, so I couldn’t sift out the bigger chunks of almonds. I don’t know if this also contributed to the cracking problem, or just made the cookies less smooth in the end.
3. I was expecting a crispy, airy interior, but they ended up being more chewy. Like I said, I’ve never eaten a “real” macaroon, so maybe my assumption was wrong. Otherwise, I either underbaked them or there was too much moisture.
Despite these challenges, the macaroons still tasted delicious and melted in my mouth!
What I Learned From Macaroon Monday
1. The Macaroon Monday challenge got me into the kitchen trying something out of my comfort zone. As my meringue formed and my macaroons began to come together, my baking confidence grew. If I can make macaroons, I can make anything, right?
2. I added some new skills to my baking repertoire. While I used to struggle with making meringues, I definitely succeeded today, and am now certain I could do it again. Not to mention the fact that I perfected my folding technique
3. I learned that patience is key when baking. I tend to rush through mixing and prep work, but today I focused on each step and felt calm and patient throughout the process… something I want to practice more during future baking sessions!
Did you participate in Macaroon Monday? How’d it go?
Great job! I think my downfall was in the egg whites. I tried to whip them once by hand, but I got exhausted and stopped at the soft-peak stage. The other 2 times I used a food processor, which just wasn’t the same. I’ll need to try again when I’m home and have an automatic hand mixer
Well these look just delicious! And fabulous tips too!! And they’re pink! Love!
these are GORGEOUS !!
absolutely perfect.
I “participated” by making Vegan Butter Toffee !! First time okay, second time AWESOME !!
Congrats on the macaroons!
Nice “feet” on those macarons!
I made my own macarons for the challenge – next time, I think I will skip the chocolate in the shells and depend on ganache filling for the chocolate flavor. http://districtchocoholic.blogspot.com/2010/11/macaron-monday-accepting-challenge.html
Your’s look really good, too!
Thanks
. I credit the Scharffen Berger. And maybe Wisconsinites like us are destined to make great macarons.
Scharffen Berger is the BEST chocolate!
These look delicious. They look really neat with the color.
I baked coconut macaroons. I was glad I tried baking, but I don’t think it is my forte. Perhaps I should practice more!
Great job! They look delish, and I love the way that your colors turned out!
Those macaroons look perfect! And I love the color!
I participated by conquering my fear of yeast to finally make pizza dough. Made great pizza rolls for lunch today
You should definitely feel confident about your baking abilities after conquering macaroons! They are so pretty and I’m sure they taste amazing. The “bread” I made for Macaroon Monday was simple but at least it got the ball rolling in my kitchen…
But I think cracked macaroons have character.. Good thing I’m not your neighbor. I’d smell the baking and be knocking on your door.
I wish you were my neighbor…having all these macaroons around is dangerous when it is just my husband and i eating them
Those look so delicious and authentic! I love the pink color.
I think you are onto something with the egg white aging process. My second attempt was successful and I aged them for less than a day. Congratulations – they look beautiful!
those look great! i’ve actually never had one either, so I have no idea what they taste like…but they look tasty!!!!
Those look so good–exactly like any macaroon’s I’ve ever had. Nice job!
Are they supposed to be kind of moist and gooey inside, or airy and crisp?
The ones I’ve had are airy and crisp on the outside and a bit gooey inside.
That’s kind of how mine were, so maybe I did do them right!
You go girl! These look gorgeous and good enough to eat! You are inspiring me to tackle a new dish!
Awesome! what are you going to make?
those look scrumptious no matter what the texture. the Whole Foods in Schaumburg, IL has them at their cookie bulk bar. (at $14.99/lb, you can’t really bulk those bags too much or you’ll go broke!!–more like the cookie broke bar.;) ) anywho, the chocolate ones are a bit chewier, but the cookie part is still semi crunchy. then the almond ones are delish. I may try these after the dust settles in my life-or when I get back from my trip just prior to the holidays.
Your Whole Foods has a cookie bulk bar? That’s amazing!
I know, right?!? Just the larger stores have the extra goodies, like gelato, cookie bar, sushi station, etc.
it’s like foodie HEAVEN!! it’s not the closest one to me, but it’s disney of Whole Foods and a great outing place, they have a huge cafe area to go read/study/drink wine, eat your lunch/dinner. A friend and I set up and made Christmas cards last weekend for about 4 & 1/2 hours, we stopped to snack on food, drink wine, chat. it was an awesome afternoon.