Macarons

Well, what can I say about my experiment with Macarons apart from "nice try, better luck next time".  I started off by choosing to make the Italian Meringue; all the research I have done over the last few weeks states that though they are slightly more time consuming to make they are more stable than their French counterparts, so this morning I went about separating exactly 194g of egg whites and putting them in a bowl in order to bring them up to room temperature.

Ingredients (I did use the method which apparently can be tracked back to Pierre Herme)

For the Meringue
97g egg whites (next time I will age them for 24hrs too)
250g granulated sugar
63g of water (yes, it is an odd amount but it works)

I used a sugar thermometer to ensure that the sugar syrup did not go above 118⁰C and at the point that it reached 100⁰C I started to beat the egg whites until they frothed

Bubbling sugar syrup

I added the syrup to the frothed egg whites (they were standing up on their own and well on the way to being a good meringue).

Finished Italian Meringue

The meringue, when finished, had a small 'eagle's peak', I think that perhaps the meringue had been slightly over-whipped before I added the sugar syrup which led to a much looser finished product than I would have liked.

Once I had finished the mixing of the meringue I finished off the macaron mix, which is made mixing the following together:

97g egg white (again this should be aged)
250g ground almonds (sieved)
250g icing sugar (sieved)

Once I had mixed these together until they made a thick almost gummy paste  I started to stir in the meringue mixture.

Meringue being mixed into the almond and sugar batter

Once this was all incorporated and the mixture was almost falling smoothly off the spoon I separated it into two bowls so that I could do two different colours.  

Earlier (while I was waiting for the egg whites to come up to room temperature I drew around a shot glass using a black marker pen 15 times on three sheets of non-stick paper.  I used the template to pipe the batter onto the trays which I then left for 30 minutes on the side so that they could grow a 'skin'.

30 minutes isn't that long, right?

While they were settling on the trays I turned the oven on and set it to 140⁰C, by the time the macarons had been sitting out on the side for 30 minutes the oven had reached the right temperature (or what I assumed was the right temperature - think I will be investing in an oven thermometer this week).

In the oven - they even started to develop those little 'feet'

I looked at them in the oven after about five minutes and could see that they had started to develop those beautiful little bubble feet, they were straight, the tops were smooth and they looked great.  Then disaster...

Cracked, distorted and chewy!

I can only assume that a) they cooked too quickly on the top and the oven was at the wrong temperature. They taste fine though they are considerably more chewy than I would like.  I am going to follow the rest of the instructions though and leave them in an air-tight container for at least 24 hours before I put the filling inside them (I am thinking that I will use a chantilly cream stirred through with dried fruit of some kind).

Though these are not the stunning initial foray, at least I know that the Italian Meringue method does produce good results, now it's all down to the oven temperature and getting a better quality of tray to bake them on (it's possible another of the issues that I had with these is connected solely to the tray being a little bit thin and bending when exposed to a little bit too much heat).

I live and learn, next time these will be much better.  Guess that the baking for the sale this coming Friday will be cupcakes - wonder what recipe I will try :)