Attempt # 1- Macarons

Wow, it's been awhile since my last post. No worries. Back on track. The other day I was looking around online and found that quite a few bloggers wrote about making french macaroons or eating them in restaurants. I have never had them, but they look oh so good. I decided to get back in the kitchen and experiment again. I found two different recipes online. One clearly worked out better than the other. I had decided upon Cherry Macaroons and Pistachio Macaroons. Just a little FYI for everyone,pistachios are a pain in the butt to deshell. Plus with eating them along the way, you have to deshell more and more.

Yummy pistachios chillin on the scale

I followed the recipe and for the most part it came out good. When I piped the mixture onto the paper, it was fine.I waited a few minutes,like the recipe said, before putting them in the oven. What came out was definetly not what I was expecting.

Rejected! They look like lava rocks.

After that disaster, I started on the Cherry Macaroons. This recipe actually worked out quite nicely. They piped out nicely like the pistachio recipe and baked up beautifully.

Beautifully piped-out macaroons

While they were cooling down, I made a Cherry Buttercream for the filling. Just the basic buttercream recipe of butter and sugar. I added some of the cherry flavoring and red food coloring. I sandwiched them together and enjoyed.

Finished product. Nom Nom.

Here is the recipe I used for the cherry macaroons:

Cherry Macaroons

Supposedly makes 40-54 cookies. I got about 20.

1 ¼ Cups Confectioners' Sugar

1 ¼ Cups Almond Flour

3 large Egg Whites

1/8 tsp Salt

¼ Cup Granulated Sugar

2 tsp Cherry Flavoring

2-4 drops Red food coloring

Basic Buttercream recipe with cherry flavoring added

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

1. Sift confectioners' sugar into a medium bowl. Blend in almond flour.

2. In a large bowl, mix egg whites at high speed until foamy, add salt. Slowly add sugar, blend until soft peaks form.

3. Add vanilla extract and food coloring; take care not to over mix.

4. Gently fold the almond flour mixture into egg whites to incorporate, take care not to over mix.

5. Gently fill a pastry bag (no tip required) with mixture and pipe into 1 - 1 1/2 inch rounds onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

6. Bake until bottoms of cookies are just set and tops are firm, approx. 20 mins.

7. Remove from oven and allow to cool on parchment sheets.

8. When completely cool, spread a decent amount of cherry buttercream filling on the flat bottom of a cookie. Sandwich with a second cookie and repeat with remaining cookies.