This blog is supposed to be about eating away from home, but today I'm writing about macaroons, which I have been attempting to make at home. They're French, so I figure they have a place here.
I've had a thing for proper macaroons since I first tried them at Laduree in the Printemps mall on a work trip to Paris a few years back. I don't have a sweet tooth but I do love contrasting textures in food. So these decadent treats, with their thin crunchy shells yielding to chewy insides and creamy fillings, occupy a high rank in my gastronomic top-10. Having eschewed the cupcake craze, this is one foodie bandwagon I've gleefully jumped aboard.
They're tricky little bastards though. Several attempts over the past few weeks have ended in disaster - cracked tops and spreading in the oven being the main issues (although the resulting "meringue biscuits" were yummy).
So you can imagine my delight yesterday evening when, after I'd all but given up on the damn things, Henry had a go and produced an almost-perfect batch on his second attempt. Ok, a few were cracked, but there were enough smooth-topped, crinkly-footed, perfectly round little marvels for me to assemble a baker's dozen of finished macaroons, held together with chocolate ganache.
I've had a thing for proper macaroons since I first tried them at Laduree in the Printemps mall on a work trip to Paris a few years back. I don't have a sweet tooth but I do love contrasting textures in food. So these decadent treats, with their thin crunchy shells yielding to chewy insides and creamy fillings, occupy a high rank in my gastronomic top-10. Having eschewed the cupcake craze, this is one foodie bandwagon I've gleefully jumped aboard.
They're tricky little bastards though. Several attempts over the past few weeks have ended in disaster - cracked tops and spreading in the oven being the main issues (although the resulting "meringue biscuits" were yummy).
So you can imagine my delight yesterday evening when, after I'd all but given up on the damn things, Henry had a go and produced an almost-perfect batch on his second attempt. Ok, a few were cracked, but there were enough smooth-topped, crinkly-footed, perfectly round little marvels for me to assemble a baker's dozen of finished macaroons, held together with chocolate ganache.
But I've now been upstaged in my own kitchen. This obviously won't do, so I'm more determined than ever to master the macaroon. Henry reckons my principal mistakes have been a) not beating the egg whites enough; b) not folding the mixture together thoroughly enough; and c) having the oven too hot. More thorough beating of the egg whites will solve the spreading problem. The folding is tricky - you don't want to over-fold and lose all the air in the mixture, but under-folding means the biscuits won't form a strong, smooth top. The mixture needs to be thick, but fairly runny and glossy too. And next time I'll try baking them on the conventional bake setting rather than fan-bake, which I'm hoping might eliminate cracked tops altogether.
No comments:
Post a Comment