Look I made macarons!
I'm still in shock. I actually had some success!
One of my friends recently confessed to me that she had made macarons (you know who you are Shaz!)
I was so impressed! She even had photographic evidence to prove it! Spurred on by her success, this weekend I was determined to have another go.
I have only made macarons once before, and they were a disaster.
I have to confess, I have severe RDD (Recipe Deficit Disorder)
Any recipes longer than a few lines, I tend to ignore and make up as I go along. That is what I did with my first attempt at macarons.
On my first attempt I certainly didn't bother to grind my icing sugar with the ground almonds before sieving....
...and I certainly didn't whip my egg whites until they were stiff peaks.
I realised after my first attempt that with these little suckers, you really do have to follow the recipe to the letter. So I did. I used the recipe from I love Macarons by Hisako Ogita.
I decided on pink vanilla and chocolate macarons, which I sandwiched together with a vanilla custard creme.
The mixture was a little runny with my pink vanilla macarons. I am not sure if I overmixed or didn't mix enough.
As you can see they were a little flat after cooking.
My chocolate ones were much better although some of them cracked. I think my "macaronnage" technique improved for these ones.
The vanilla custard creme was lovely.
If you squint, they don't actually look half bad.
But they tasted yummy!
Mr G and I ate the whole lot in about 24 hours!
I really want to have a go at making salted caramel macarons next time so watch this space.
Check out http://www.theartofbeingperfect.blogspot.com/ for the recipe.
The mixture was a lot firmer than my regular whoopie pie mix, and the whoopies were certainly more denser. More like a muffin consistency.
I made a batch of cream cheese frosting to sandwich the pies together.
They look pretty though!
