Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Macaroons (Daring Bakers in October)

The Bakers challenge this month was more challenging than I was anticipating. I must say the cookies were good, I just didn't get the best results. No little feet at the end of my cookies. Too bad I don't like nut cookies enough to try this recipe again. It is a must to use parchment paper, which I didn't do :(. I used Reynolds wrap. Bad idea. But here are my results.
 













Recipe Source: This recipe comes from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern.Ingredients
Powdered sugar: 2 ¼ cups
Almond flour: 2 cups
Granulated sugar: 2 Tbsp.
Egg whites: 5
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.
2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.
5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).
6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.
Yield: 10 dozen. Ami's note: My yield was much smaller than this. I produced about two dozen filled macaroons.
(baking before the "jump" or "cut")

2 comments:

  1. Great attempt! Look tasty! The elusive feet were hard to obtain it seems.

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  2. I too underestimated how difficult these little cookies were to make. well done on your attempt, they look great!

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