For a while, I've been obsessed with the perfect sandwich cookie, the macaron. After all, they're beautiful to look at, so delicious to eat, not to mention incredibly elegant. I remember cold days in Helsinki (I know, not exactly the macaron capital of the world, but at least closer to Paris than Montana) where I would find myself wandering into a café only to pour myself a cup of coffee and sink my teeth into a couple of macarons. There are a few places here in Missoula that also do the macaron, but as I haven't found one I truly love, I decided to try and recreate the macaron I've been missing for a few months now.
Macarons aren't the easiest cookies to make. In fact, I'd say they're one of the hardest I've made thus far. Scouring the Internet for a detailed yet user-friendly macaron recipe, I quickly learned that there is a lot of macaron knowledge to be shared from those who have tried, failed, and tried again. I finally landed
here, and I can certainly say
this post and recipe gave me the confidence to try my own hand at macaroning. Macarons take a little bravery, time, and research, but if you can find a good recipe with detailed instructions to hold your hand through the process, they become that much easier.
As I said, I followed
this recipe almost exactly. Here are some slight changes I made: I wanted the macarons to have a true almond flavor, so I added one whole teaspoon of almond extract into the basic batter as opposed to the half teaspoon the recipe originally called for. I can also recommend making your own almond flour for this recipe, especially if you don't often use almond flour in any other cooking. It takes little to no time to throw a cup of almonds in a food processor and grind them until fine.
I also found that my macarons weren't done at ten to eleven minutes, so I left mine in the oven for about twelve to thirteen minutes. You want to make sure the entire cookie will slide off the parchment, not just the top, otherwise the macarons will be hollow as most of the filling will still be stuck to the parchment.
For the filling, I decided on bittersweet chocolate. I love the combination of the really sweet cookie and the bittersweet chocolate. The basic macaron doesn't need anything too sweet for a filling, it's sweet enough on its own. Instead of five ounces of chocolate, I used about one and a half to two cups of coarsely chopped bittersweet chocolate.
I now have my eye on
these chocolate macarons from David Lebovitz. Next time.
