Could macarons be the new cupcake? Part 3 French Macaron Tutorial

As you all know, we are in LOVE with macarons!! We hope you had a chance to read our previous posts about the history of the French Macaron!
Could macarons be the new cupcake? Part 1
Could macarons be the new cupcake? Part 2
Now we want to share with you HOW to make French Macarons. They can be a little tricky to master, so if you don't get them perfect the first time don't be discouraged! We are going to share Martha Stewart's recipe with you (with some notes that we added to make the process a little easier.)

French Macarons
1 cup confectioners sugar
3/4 cup almond flour
2 large egg whites (let eggs come to room temperature before you use them)
pinch of cream of tartar
1/4 cup superfine sugar

Fillings can be seedless jam, buttercream or ganache

Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees
Line your baking sheets with parchment paper


Combine your almond flour and confectioners sugar then sift two times. This can be a process, so we use a wooden spoon to get everything sifted through.



This is what it should look like after the sugar and almond flour are combined correctly

Whisk you egg whites with a mixer until foamy

At this point you can add your cream of tartar and food coloring if you want to make them a certain color. (We add the food coloring at this point because the egg whites can not be over whipped. If you add it after they are whipped you have a chance of over whipping them and this will cause the tops of the macarons to crack when they are baking) Whisk until soft peaks form. At this point add your sugar and whip the eggs whites until stiff peaks form. Stiff peaks are when the egg whites are mixed enough the stand up like a peek with out dropping over. (Martha Stewart's recipe says that this takes about 8 minutes, but it usually only takes us about 3 minutes) As we stated before over whipping will cause the tops of the macarons to crack and under whipping will cause the macarons to spread and not be a shaply cookie.

Sift the flour mixture over the egg whites and fold in until the mixture is smooth and shiny. We usually end up doing about 40-50 folds. Do not stir the mixture, make sure you fold it, if you stir you will end up over whipping the egg whites.
Transfer your batter into a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2 inch round tip. Pipe 3/4 inch rounds about 1 inch apart. (If this is your first time pipping you can take a 3/4 inch cookie cutter and trace it on the back side of your parchment paper
an inch apart. Remember to turn your paper over before actually pipping so that the pen or pencil side is down against the baking sheet...then you can see through the paper and pipe your circles) Tap the bottom of each baking sheet down on the couter, (just lift it slighty off the counter and drop it) to release any air bubbles. Let the unbaked cookies stand at room temperature for 15 minutes. Your oven should be heated to 375 but turn it down to 325 and put the baking sheet in right away. Bake one sheet at a time, rotating half way through until macarons are crisp this should take about 10 minutes. After each batch, increase your oven temperature to 375 heat for 5 minutes and then reduce to 325 and put the baking sheet in the oven right away. This is done so that the macaron creates an egg-shell like outter shell and has a chewy moist inside.

Let macarons cool for 2-3 minutes then transfer to a wire rack. Sandwhich macarons with filling of your choice. Serve right away or freeze unfilled macarons between sheets of parchment paper for up to 3 months.




6 comments:

- said...

Wow! Thanks for posting. I've tried to make them before but it was an epic fail. I'm also thankful you posted the tidbit about letting the cookies stand at room T before baking. I've seen people adamant about either not doing that or doing it. Thanks for clarifying!

Anonymous said...

thanks for the great tutorial.

7 Baldwin's said...

Oh yummos! Can't wait to try this! Thanks sooo much for sharing!

Maysem said...

I've been intimidated to make macarons...but your instructions make it less intimidating...still intimidating but less :) Thanks!

Kathryn said...

I made my first attempt at French macarons just this week using the laduree sucre cookbook. The recipe mentions letting the cookies sit in the fridge overnight before eating. The recipe says some sort of reaction takes place during this time...it's true! I tried one immediately after filling & then 12 hours later after sitting in the fridge & the latter were far superior! Just a little tidbit I thought I'd share! Thanks for the tutorial...this would have taken the guesswork out of my first attempt at a tricky recipe!

Anonymous said...

Do you have to use just almond flour or can you use regular flour?

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