Parisian Macarons

Parisian macarons... as opposed to macaroons, have given me baking grief since I first ever tried to make them. The very first batch (from a Martha Stewart recipe) turned out good, but never again. No matter which recipe, which method, which six magical steps I followed (let them dry, old egg whites, bake with oven door propped open, recite incantation.. etc.) nothing worked.

Successful (but not neatly-filled) Swiss Meringue Macarons

I recently shelled out some serious $$ to attend a one-day class at the Bonnie Gordon School of Confectionery Arts  (see previous cream puff post for link) in order to 'beat' this meringue demon! Success sort of came, one batch was slightly odd looking in their shape. The instructor suggested that my partner and I had not 'deflated' the egg whites enough. Ugh.. there's too much sciency-nonsense in making these things. In the class we made macaron shells from three different recipes, a Swiss Meringue, an French meringue and an Italian Chocolate Hazelnut-based meringue. Having not been familiar with hazelnuts at all (my beloved is allergic, therefore, we are a hazelnut-free home) I didn't realize until after they were made that I do not like hazelnuts. At least, now I know.

The yellow ones are the French Meringue recipe that apparently was 'under deflated - who knew there was such a condition?? As you can see, they are slightly rounded and cracked on top. They still tasted like they were supposed to. The violet coloured ones are made from a Swiss Meringue and they were perfect. They rose well and developed the trademark 'feet' or 'pieds' (if we're being very Parisian about this) of the macaron. I didn't take any pics of the Chocolate Hazelnut ones as we made those last and they were kind of meh anyway.

These are my violet shells, see their tiny little feet. Perfect.

This is a cooling rack (wish I had one of these at home) with lots of  freshly baked macaron shells. The theory is that you make the filling on one day, the shells the next day and let them 'ripen' in the fridge overnight. Letting them come to room temperature before eating... as if they'd last that long!

The finished product, all bagged up ready to take home.

The instructor demo'd how to make the various fillings and gave us an assortment to use for our own assembly. There was no time in class for us to make them, but ganache and buttercream are things I already know how to make. We also got to decorate the finished macs with 'lustre dust' and 'disco dust' stuff. Not sure I'll be doing that when I make my own at home now. The fillings I used for the violet and yellow ones were mainly buttercream. A vanilla buttercream (with a tiny dot of strawberry jam in the centre) and a passionfruit buttercream. I used a salted caramel chocolate ganache for the chocolate hazelnut macarons.

In addition to just making macarons, we were also shown how to make a macaron tower. These are often done for weddings and are just lovely. I bought a styrofoam cone last year to do one at Christmas but since I could not make the bloody macarons, the tower did not get done. 

The styrofoam cone is covered white chocolate (the cheap stuff works just fine for this) and then the macaron are 'glued' on with a dab of melted chocolate. Apparently the tower does not look that great once the macarons are cut off to eat, so perhaps whisk it away to the kitchen to do this?

I have not included any of the recipes here, if interested, let me know.