Craftertaste Special: Macarons with Friends

Macarons. No, not macaroons, macarons!

I have been seeing these all over New York recently. I think they've actually been there the whole time and I've just been ignoring them; I assumed that the taste couldn't match the curb appeal. But after I walked into the La Maison du Macaron on 23rd street, I realized that every minute of my life before that moment had been wasted not eating macarons.

Is it the most over-engineered cookie you've ever eaten? Or maybe a cake disguised as a small sandwich? Let's be honest: it looks like a lot like an Oreo that has let itself go.

Macarons may look and taste simply delicious, but it turns out they are fairly challenging to make (read: even I have my limits!). So for this one I had to call in re-enforcements. Enter Emily, Eva, and Jacie. And Martha Stewart. People who actually know what they're doing! Hooray!

Did I mention Martha Stewart? I did. Awesome. 

For this Craftertaste special event, we all decided to try to recreate the macaron a la Martha Stewart's recipe, which can be found here. I'll walk you through what we did, and add in a couple of tips that Emily showed us as we traipsed about in macaron land. And what would this post be without an obligatory Craftertaste cartoon??

After first whisking together the almond flour and sugar, we went ahead making the egg white "meringue" that would give our macarons their chewiness on the inside and a hard shell on the outside. Here, we just used egg whites from the carton left out on the counter for about 30 mins (to get them to room temp), substituting one serving size per egg. No yolk separation necessary! 

Beating together the egg whites, cream of tartar and superfine sugar in a stand mixer yielded "stiff peaks" that look a little something like this.

When we folded in our flour mixture into the egg white mixture, a rich and creamy batter formed that we lopped into a pastry bag. Don't have one of those? A Ziploc with a corner cut off will do the trick. Just dont forget to seal the Ziploc before you start piping!

Emily actually had a silicone macaron baking sheet (who has that??) that we piped the batter onto, with its tiny silicone rings to keep the batter in a nice uniform circle. At the end of the day though, we realized the batter that we added directly onto parchment paper came out slightly better, as these cookies were easier to remove from the sheet after baking.

Don't forget to tap the baking sheets on the counter before baking! Air bubbles son no bueno.

For the cream filling, we followed a buttercream recipe (here) supplemented with one tbsp of vanilla bean paste. I know what you're thinking, and yes, the vanilla bean paste DOES have to be from Madagascar, you heathen! (No, it doesn't). For half of the buttercream, we removed it to a separate bowl after mixing and stirred in two tbsp's of instant coffee for filling variety.

What's that you say? Buttercream soup is splattering about and desecrating your otherwise spotless kitchen? Emily has the answer.

If you read the recipe hyperlinked above, you'll realize that Martha Stewart wants you to bake your macarons by letting them sit at room temperature for 15 minutes, followed by baking them in an oven that has been pre-heated to 375 but immediately turned down (for what!) to 325 prior to putting your cookie-laden baking sheet in the oven. To many, this will seem like baking voodoo. You might as well sacrifice a stick of unsalted butter upon a tiny altar before baking them. But hey, it's hard to argue with results.

I should mention that up until this point Emily has actually done 90% of the work while the rest of us tried to look busy. However, everyone could be found constructing the macaron sandwiches at the end. Look at how much fun we're having!

I have to say, the end result turned out much better than expected. I mean, we even got the little crinkly bits coming off the edges of each cookie ("feet"). Go team!

If you're thinking of making your own macarons, save time and macaron with friends! Especially friends that like to do a lot of the work for you.

Honorable mentions: Tommy, for serving us wonderful beer throughout the process. Geoff, Jillian and Ryan, for playing Settlers of Catan.

Happy Crafting!