Daring Bakers' Challenge October 2009

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. from Baking Without Fear. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Once upon a time there was a baker woman. One day she decided to bake a brownie she'd seem in a famous chef website and some macarons for a famous challenge. But what she didn't know was that the baker fairy was on vacation and the baker witch was just around the corner. The witch casted a spell: everything the baker woman would try to bake that day would be a fail. And so it was. The brownie didn't bake at all. It turned out to be something like a mousse. Tasty but, not a brownie. And the macarons, I think I should name them 'messyrons'...

Don't you get really angry when something like this happens to you? I do.

I aged the egg whites for 3 days, I grinded the nuts with powdered sugar, I know what soft peaks means. What was wrong? I promise I'll find out and tell you.

I will definitely try it again. Although I think it will be better to wait for the Audax Artifex's (another DK fabulous member) book...

The dough

In the oven

Ugly

Have you ever heard this: "if life gives you lemons, do some lemonade"?

I had a creme patissiere with vanila and almond extract leftover from the DC chalenge, so I mixed it with the failled macarons, topped with Chantilly, garnished with strawberry and pistachios and Voilá! My kids loved this desert. They asked me to always mess my macarons. Lol

Ingredients

Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)

Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.) -> I worked with 100g almond and 90 pistachio flour

Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)

Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)

1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.

2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.

3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.

4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.

5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).

6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.

7. Cool on a rack before filling.

Yield: 10 dozen. Ami's note: My yield was much smaller than this. I produced about two dozen filled macaroons.

Additional Information:

David Lebovitz breaks it down: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2008/09/making_french_macarons.htm...

More macaroon 411:  http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/10/introduction-to-french-macarons.html

Get inspired by our own Tartlette!:  http://www.mytartelette.com/search/label/macarons

Go behind the scenes of Paulette:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXIvX0-CEu0

Watch a pro pipe macaroons:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_RfiFoWZKQ&feature=related

Beating egg whites: http://www.glutenfreecookingschool.com/archives/egg-series-no-1-how

Thanks to Ami. This was a real challenge for me. I'll try to do this again and I'm sure this time no baker witch will stop me!