French Macaroons

French Macaroons seem to be all the baking rage lately. Some will also have you believe that you need to be a French pastry chef in order to make them. WRONG. Its easy. Easy if your not like handicapped in a way that you may run out in busy traffic or play golf in a raging lightning storm.

The French Macaroons are a cookie made with ground almonds, sugar and beaten egg whites. If you have a nut or egg allergy beware. I don’t want any news that one of you allergic types tried these then you seized up and had to take fifteen Epi-Shots in your butt to keep you from heading into the bright lights.

Generally speaking the cookies have either buttercream or jelly/jam spread in between the cookies. I went the butter cream route today. The cookies have a semi hard plastic shell type exterior and soft chewy interior. You can dye them any color you like.

Here are a few pictures of my examples I busted out this afternoon.


French Macaroons
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
A cookie. Its French and they call it a macaroon. They are in vogue right now, so make them and impress people.
Author:
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: French
Serves: 12
Ingredients
  • ¾ cups Finely Ground Almonds
  • 1 cup Powdered Confectioners Sugar
  • 2 Egg Whites
  • 4 Tablespoons Granulated Sugar
  • 2-4 Drops of Food Coloring
Instructions
  1. Grind and sift Almonds into bowl
  2. Sift Powdered Confectioners sugar into bowl with ground Almonds
  3. Using a whip attachment on mixer or handheld blender whip Egg Whites to soft peak stage
  4. Slowly add Granulated sugar a tablespoon at a time to whipped Egg Whites until stiff peak stage
  5. Fold stiff peak Egg White / Sugar mixture into ground Almonds and Confectioners Sugar until well incorporated
  6. Add 2-4 drops of Food coloring of choice to cookie batter and stir to incorporate
  7. Spoon cookie batter into piping bag or ziplock bag with corner cut off
  8. Pipe dime sized batter onto parchment lined baking sheet, well spaced out. Batter will flatten out a bit
  9. Leave baking sheets with piped out cookie batter on counter to rest 15 minutes to form a crust on top of each cookie
  10. Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees
  11. After 15 minutes rest and oven pre-heat place baking sheets with cookies into oven and lower heat to 300 degrees
  12. Bake for 8 minutes
  13. Rotate baking sheets in oven
  14. Bake for another 8 minutes
  15. Remove baking sheets allow cookies to cool for 10-15 minutes
  16. Remove cookies from baking sheets and allow to completely cook on racks
  17. Gently spread buttercream frosting or jam of your choice between cookies