How to Make French Macarons in 10 Steps

I made macarons a few weekends ago and I thought that sharing my experiences would be a perfect way to resurrect my poor neglected blog.

Before I start, I want to clarify - I'm talking about French Macarons made with almond flour and egg. Not Macaroons which are yummy little coconut treats.

Here's a picture of my result:
Yum - Almond macarons with lemon custard filling!

Since these are often refered to as one of the most difficult pastries to make, I thought I'd share my technique.

1. Take a class from a French chef who makes Macaron baking look like the easiest thing in the world.

2. Make a special trip into the city to buy almond flour. Accidentally buy almond meal.

3. Try to make almond flour out of almond meal. Get frustrated.

4. Have a nap.

5. Make a special trip into town to buy a flour sifter.

6. Realize that the almond meal is still too coarse to go through the sifter and that you only have enough icing sugar for a half batch. Refuse to go into town again and half the recipe instead.

7. Use the almond meal and hope for the best. At the very least you can make an interesting trifle.

8. Discover that cheap aluminum cookie sheets result in mutant macarons and that expensive double bottom cookie sheets result in nice looking ones.

9. Run out of parchment paper. Refuse to make another trip into town since the stores are all closed anyway. Discover that macarons stick to parchment paper when it's used more than once. Also discover that sticky macarons = mutant macarons.

10. Eat the mutant macarons to hide the evidence.

That's it! You now should have about 10 perfect macarons to show for a whole day of baking! Easy right?






MUTANT MACARON!!! RUN AWAY!!!