First, if you follow my instagram you will see that I've been baking macarons a lot lately. It's annoying but if you have ever tried to bake macarons you know how difficult they are to get right. So once you are able to make cute little macarons then you kind of want to show them off. The cool thing about macarons is that they are so versatile. You can literally make so many flavor and color combinations. Example, fruity pebble macarons that I randomly made. You know that I did not come up with this but I saw pictures on the internet and I was like I can do that....so I did. Check them out they were amazing! I'm going to be making another batch of these this weekend.
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| Fruity Pebble Macarons |
But thats not the subject of this first post. Grapefruit Macarons are. Macarons are kind of basic as far as the ingredients needed. I'll give a few pointers in between because I had to go through some trial and error period to get to this point.
First, I would invest in a digital scale. They are only about 15-20 bucks. In the whole macaron making process, precision is key. You need to weigh your ingredients in grams because it's just more accurate than measuring in cups.
Macaron cookie
- 120 grams of extra fine almond meal
- 200 grams of powdered sugar
- 50 grams of granulated sugar
- 100 grams of room temperature egg whites
- red & yellow food coloring (optional)
- silver sanding sugar (optional)
Grapefruit filling
- 8oz of softened cream cheese
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1/2 cup of grapefruit curd
- yellow food coloring (optional)
Since this is the first post of this blog and I didn't really plan on creating this blog the pictures aren't really that great, but here's a pic of the ingredients
Next you will need to take a fine mesh sieve and push through the 200g of powdered sugar and 120g of extra fine almond flour like so. Don't skip this step. It seems like you can but if you do this your macarons will not have smooth tops. They will be lumpy and pretty ugly. Why do you want to make lumpy, ugly macarons? If you're going to go through all this trouble and use expensive almond meal to make these little cookies you should want to make them as perfect as possible.
Once that has been sifted just set it aside.
Now take those room temperature egg whites and place them in a mixing bowl. You can beat these with a hand mixer with a whisk attachment, by hand with a whisk (arm workout) , or in a stand mixer with the whisk attachment. You need to make sure your bowl is clean and dry and that your egg whites have no yolk in them. They will not whip up correctly. Ok whip those room temperature egg whites on a low speed until they start to get foamy.
When it gets foamy, I start to slowly add the granulated sugar and turn the mixer up to a medium/high speed until soft peaks form.
I whip for about another minute. You will notice that your egg whites are starting to get shiny. You will then start to notice the whisk marks in the meringue. While still in soft peak form, I add a few drops of gel food coloring. I wanted my macaron shell orange (you know for grapefruit.) so I used two drops of yellow and one drop of red gel coloring. Hey just use gel coloring, I've heard/seen that the liquid drops can break down those delicate meringues that you worked so hard to create. Just be careful.
So just whip a bit more until stiff peaks form. You can tell when stiff peaks form when you pull up the whisk and the egg whites clump in the middle of the whisk and the little peak on the end doesn't droop. Ok, so when you have achieved stiff peaks stop. (If you over whip your egg whites, it will screw up your macarons and they will have crinkly tops and not look like macarons)
Now we will take our sifted almond meal+ powdered sugar mixture and pour that into your egg white meringue
This is where your macarons can go wrong, it's all about the folding or macaronagé. This process is going to combine the wet and dry ingredients and it also deflates the meringue. This transforms the recipe from and almond meringue to a macaron. How I like start is by pouring 1/3 or my dry mixture into my wet, folding the mixture ,with a silicon spatula, around the bowl and over onto itself (about 10 folds), then add another 1/3 of your dry mixture into the wet (about 10 folds), and then I fold the last 1/3 dry mixture into the wet until combined. I then start to slow down on the folding and check the batter after every couple of folding.
During the whole folding process, it will be hard to fold. It will be very thick. Also during the folding I like to smear the batter onto the sides of the bowl, this releases some of the air that was beat into the egg whites (you want to get some of the air out that was beat into your meringue)
This takes a lot of practice because the whole mixing of the dry and wet ingredients will mess up your macarons. Some people say don't go over 50-60 folds or strokes of turning your batter. I stopped counting folds. I stop and check batter consistency. I stop when the batter looks like a thick cake batter (It's going to ribbon off the silicon spatula like lava) I tried to get a great picture but it's hard. Just stop folding when you can make like a figure 8 with your batter as it ribbons off your spatula. If you overmix this batter you will ruin your macarons, if you undermix you are going to ruin your macaron. These little cookies are very temperamental.
Ok oooooppppssss I forgot to take a picture of me putting this in a piping bag. Here's a tip I like to only place half of this mixture in the piping bag at a time. I mean I feel like I have more control of the bag and the pressure in which I pipe. I place just a little round tip like a 12A (hey you can get one at Hobby Lobby for 99 cents. Oh and you can get disposable piping bags for like a few bucks and use a 40% off coupon too! Yeah I use coupons on things that are like a buck at Hobby Lobby) Ok, so you take a cookie sheet and line it with parchment paper and pipe 1.5 inch circles. If you are not that great with just piping on parchment paper, you can print out macaron templates and place them under the parchment paper and then pipe circles. Just remember to remove the template from under the parchment paper before baking.
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| silver sprinkles look amazing on the orange macarons |
After you pipe those little circles, you need to hit your trays against your countertop. You need to get the air out. This process will release any air bubbles that may be hiding under your cookie. If you find little air bubbles, you can take a toothpick and pop them. Now you can decorate your cookies. I just used the silver sanding sugar and sprinkled them on each cookie. I think it gave them a little pop of glitz. Now you need to let your cookies sit and dry out.
I usually let them sit for about atleast 30 minutes.While your cookies are drying out you can make some filling. I didn't take a picture, sorry. Hey if you don't want to make filling you can literally use anything. If you'd like to use jam or store bought grapefruit curd or grapefruit marmalade that will save you a step. You just need to with a mixer beat your cream cheese till it's fluffy and add the half cup of powdered sugar at a low speed (you do not want to be covered in powdered sugar) then add your grapefruit curd, since we are making grapefruit macarons then add your curd and maybe some grapefruit zest. I added one drop of yellow because I wanted a contrast of color. Then add the filling to a piping bag and place it in the fridge.
Below is the grapefruit curd recipe (I hope you didn't throw those egg yolks that were left over from your egg whites from the macarons in the trash)
Grapefruit curd recipe
3 room temperature egg yolks
3/4 granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups juice from grapefruits (about 2)
zest from one grapefruit
2 tablespoons of cornstarch
4 tablespoons of cold butter
- Basically place the sugar and cornstarch in a small pot or sauce pan, stir those with a whisk till combined
- Place your sugar + cornstarch mixture over medium/high heat and stir in the juice from the grapefruits. Just keep stirring the mixture and it will start to thicken (sometimes about 10 minutes)
- In another bowl whisk the egg yolks together.
- So take your hot mixture and pour half of that over the eggs to temper them (you do not want scrambled eggs) you better whisk that the whole time. ok now take that mixture (the mixture of egg yolks+half hot mixture) and pour that back into the mixture on the stove.
- Keep whisking and pour in the grapefruit zest.
- The mixture will begin to slightly bubble and become thick so take it off the heat and stir in the butter a tablespoon at a time.
- Let the mixture come to room temperature and place it in a jar
- Refrigerate for at least 4 hours.
Preheat the oven to 300F. Your cookies need to dry out and they will form a little skin over them. You will know that they are dry enough to bake when you lightly tap a cookie and your finger won't have sticky batter on them. It will be dry to the touch. Also I have a picture, the shell will become sort of matte.
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| dry to the touch |
When your macarons are dry place them in the oven for 14-18 minutes (This of course depends on your oven temp) I like to rotate my tray half way through the baking process to ensure even baking) When these are about to be done you can check one cookie and see if it starts to peel off the paper. If it does take them out and sit them on the counter or wherever you place things to cool. If that cookie does not attempt to come off and it's all sticky and stuck to the paper that means it isn't baked enough so maybe add a minute. Remember when you take them out of the oven they will still cook a bit on the hot pan. I normally take them out of the oven and leave them on the oven in the pan for a minute, then pull the cookies (still on the parchment paper) and place them on the counter for another 3-5 minutes. Then slowly peel them off the paper.
I didn't take a picture of the filling process, but of course you need to let the cookies cool completely before trying to fill these. I mean you don't want your filling sliding out. So fill half of your macaron cookies, try not to fill to the edge of the cookie because you have to place another cookie on top to create those cute sandwich cookies, and you don't want the filling spilling all out of the side. Ok so you are done... but here's one last bit of advice, place these little babies in the fridge for about a day. I mean you can eat them now, but macarons need to mature and they taste the absolute best after 24-48 hours in the fridge, then let them come to room temperature when you want to eat them. You will get a nice crunchy outer shell then chewy interior with the yummy filling.
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| Grapefruit Macarons look so cute |
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