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.
- ¾ cups Finely Ground Almonds
- 1 cup Powdered Confectioners Sugar
- 2 Egg Whites
- 4 Tablespoons Granulated Sugar
- 2-4 Drops of Food Coloring
- Grind and sift Almonds into bowl
- Sift Powdered Confectioners sugar into bowl with ground Almonds
- Using a whip attachment on mixer or handheld blender whip Egg Whites to soft peak stage
- Slowly add Granulated sugar a tablespoon at a time to whipped Egg Whites until stiff peak stage
- Fold stiff peak Egg White / Sugar mixture into ground Almonds and Confectioners Sugar until well incorporated
- Add 2-4 drops of Food coloring of choice to cookie batter and stir to incorporate
- Spoon cookie batter into piping bag or ziplock bag with corner cut off
- Pipe dime sized batter onto parchment lined baking sheet, well spaced out. Batter will flatten out a bit
- Leave baking sheets with piped out cookie batter on counter to rest 15 minutes to form a crust on top of each cookie
- Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees
- After 15 minutes rest and oven pre-heat place baking sheets with cookies into oven and lower heat to 300 degrees
- Bake for 8 minutes
- Rotate baking sheets in oven
- Bake for another 8 minutes
- Remove baking sheets allow cookies to cool for 10-15 minutes
- Remove cookies from baking sheets and allow to completely cook on racks
- Gently spread buttercream frosting or jam of your choice between cookies