It’s spring! Freaking finally! I never thought this would happen, but I can look out my window without seeing a winter wonderland. In honor of all this lovely green, and the fact that my coworkers are mad at me because I might be leaving them, I decided to make them some macarons.
The coolest part about my coworkers is that most of them are French, and I was just too excited today when they all ate my macarons and said they were good! Whoo! And I know what you’re thinking, they weren’t just being polite. French people are very rarely polite for the sake of being polite; my macarons sucked,I would have known for sure.
The green tea flavor was an idea from a book I have, and I slightly modified the recipe to use matcha powder, green tea powder, to color and flavor it. I’ve made some green tea baked products before, namely cake, and the results were not what I desired. But, I decided to give it a go with the macarons and was pleasantly surprised. They start out kind of sweet because of the honey buttercream that I used to fill them, but then you get a strong flavor of the green tea afterward. They are really refreshing and too dangerous; I almost ate all of my extras.
Even my French friends were impressed that I could make macarons, because there seems to be some sort of mythical hype around them. “Did you have to guard the oven the whole time?” one asked. Um, no? Macarons are mythically difficult to make, don’t be intimidated! Here are some surefire ways to get them right:
- Fold the batter– macarons are made with meringue, whipped egg whites, and its fluffiness must be maintained! You should gently fold the dry ingredients in to the meringue; so basically, gently use a spatula to stir around the edges of the bowl and cut through the middle until it all combines.
- Let it rest– this is really important! After you pipe the batter onto your parchment, let that batter take a rest. It needs to rest for about 30 minutes, or long enough so that you can touch one of the circles without any of the batter sticking to your finger. It can take less or more time depending on the weather and humidity, so just make sure that film has formed over it before you bake.
- The frilly foot, or pied— yup. The bottom of the cookie, that fluffy-looking part, is called a foot. But because it’s in French it sounds elegant, right? This is the secret to knowing when the macarons are done; when they are at the end of the bake time, try and lift one of the cookies. If the foot is wobbly or still sticking to the sheet, let ’em cook a little more, just a minute or two and then check again.
See? Simple! They’re not so much hard to make as temperamental, just pay attention and you’ll do fine. You may even impress some people… or just eat them all yourself. For macaron recipes, you can try a book or something online. The way to know if it’s a good recipe is if the ingredients are at least, egg whites, ground almonds, and white and confectioner’s sugar. After that, it’s basically just different flavors that will alter the ingredients. You can also check out good ‘ol Food Network’s recipe.
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