I am not the most precise of cooks. I take shortcuts, measure by eyesight, play fast and loose with recipes. I never use cake flour, rarely sift anything, freely substitute ingredients. And most of the time, things turn out very well indeed. Some people would say, “Oh, you’re a cook, you’re not a baker. Baking must be done with precision!” But I do bake quite a bit, and while baking requires MORE precision than cooking (I would not suggest, for example, leaving out baking powder altogether), there’s still quite a bit of wiggle room, and most things come out just fine, even with my wild and crazy ways.

Macarons are not one of those things.

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

If you’ve never had a macaron, you should. These are not the gooey, coconut confections ubiquitous at Passover, but French almond cookies similar to meringues sandwiched together with a creamy filling. A properly made macaron has a smooth, crisp shell over dainty, ruffled “feet”, and when you bite into it, you get first the crunch exterior shell then chewy almondy macaroon then creamy filling. In Parisian patisseries (where they are all the rage), you can find them in a glorious rainbow of colors and flavors. Trust me, when made properly, they are a treat.

It’s the making properly that’s the trick. I began with my usual haphazard ways and the Daring Bakers recipe. I cut it in half (because I only had 2 egg whites)(if you look at the recipe you may notes that it calls for 5 egg whites, and you can see where I started to go wrong — 1/2 of 5 does not equal 2), decided to flavor it with apples so added some pulverized dried apples to the mix (thought they were freeze dried but they were really fried, so they added oil), and mixed it up loosely. Thought the batter was a little thick, but piped them and baked them. Ended up with these:

Yeah, no smooth top, no ruffled feet, no crisp shell. These were tasty — don’t get me wrong — I could have served them at a party, unless it was a party for Parisians. They were good chewy almond macaroons. But they were not macarons.

Now, I will take part of the blame for this macaron fail, since I did play fast and loose with the proportions and introduce moisture (the oil in the apples), which is a big no no. But I will note that other Daring Bakers had similar issues with this recipe, so for try #2 (because although lackadaisical I am also stubborn, and I wanted to make the darn macarons), I looked elsewhere, namely to Helene of Tartelette who is actually a baker, actually French, and has posted multiple recipes for macarons on her website, all using the same proportions. Helene also provided invaluable advice on the Daring Bakers Forums and via Twitter.

This time I left my egg whites on the counter overnight, weighed my ingredients using a digital scale (if you don’t have a kitchen scale, I suggest you get one — they’re inexpensive and invaluable and don’t take up much room), counted my mixing strokes. I flavored this batch with some ground lapsang souchong tea, which has a pronounced smoky flavor, and filled them with salted butter caramel sauce.

This batch was much closer to the macarons of my dreams — the shells cracked on cooling (I must have overbeat them), and the macaroons themselves were on the flat side, but there were feet (small ones), and some of the crisp/chewy/creamy interplay that’s vital to a good macaron.

We ate them anyway. They tasted divine.

For the third batch (yes, I was obsessed this time), I used egg whites that had been frozen and thawed (if you have egg whites left over after making Waterzooi, freeze them until you decide to make macarons), and “aged” them in the microwave for an additional 10 seconds until the egg whites were almost liquid. This time, when I beat the egg whites, I beat them until they were stiff, and then I beat some more, until they were REALLY stiff — so stiff that when I pulled the balloon whisk attachment out of my mixer, a balloon-whisk shaped puff of egg whites had to be shaken out of the attachment. We’re talking STIFF. I added a tablespoon or so of cocoa powder to give them a faint chocolate flavor, then I carefully folded in my almond and powdered sugar (I neglected to sift the powdered sugar this time, which meant I ended up with some lumps — this only affected the finished product’s appearance, but didn’t affect the taste or texture), using strong strokes for the first 10 or so turns, breaking up the meringue, then a gentler fold until the almond and sugar were incorporated. I piped them onto parchment (using a plastic ziploc bag with the corner cut off), and let them rest 45 minutes, until the tops were somewhat dry. Then I baked them, turned off the oven, opened the door, and let them cool on the pan.

I used some more of the salted caramel sauce to fill them — because macarons are so sweet, I wanted the salty and slightly bitter edge of the caramel to counterbalance all that sweetness. The sauce is a touch runny, so the macarons should be filled after the sauce has been refrigerated.

The result?

Crisp top, ruffled feet, and much joy. Worth trying until you get it right.

Recipe
Macarons with Salted Caramel Filling
For the shells
from Tartelette (if you want to see the Daring Bakers Claudia Fleming Recipe, please see The Daring Kitchen)
90 g egg whites (about 3), left out for 2-3 days (egg whites don’t spoil the way the yolks do) or “aged” in the microwave for 10-15 seconds (ideally, egg whites should be almost liquid).
30 g granulated sugar
200 g powdered sugar
110 g almond flour or almond meal
1 tsp ground lapsang souchong tea (this was my favorite flavor of the ones I tried)

Combine tea, almonds and powdered sugar in the food processor and pulse until finely ground and no lumps remain in the powdered sugar.

In the standing mixer with the balloon attachment, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add granulated sugar, and beat until meringue is stiff. I mean REALLY stiff. If you’re not sure, beat a couple of seconds more. Are they stiff enough? Good.

With a rubber spatula, fold in 1/3 of the almond sugar mixture, using quick, firm, strokes. You want to break up the meringue in this step — don’t be too gentle! Add remaining almond mixture, 1/3 at a time, and use gentle strokes to fold it it until all almonds are incorporated, no lumps of meringue remain, and the mixture is the texture of chilled honey — when you drop a teaspoonful of the mixture on top of the rest of the batter, it should take 30-60 seconds to disappear and be reincorporated.

Using a pastry bag or a ziploc with the corner cut off, pipe the meringues into 1 inch circles on parchment paper. I found this not particularly difficult to eyeball, even though I’m not a piper, but if you’re worried about it, you may want to trace circles onto the parchment first. Remember, you want some consistency so you can match them up in sandwiches.

Let air dry for 45-60 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 300 degrees. Bake for 15-20 minutes, then turn off the oven, open the door, and let the macarons cool on the cookie sheets (this helps them release).

For the salted butter caramel filling:
From Smitten Kitchen
1 cup sugar
3 ounces (6 tablespoons) salted butter
Additional pinch salt
1/2 cup heavy cream, at room temperature

Melt the sugar over medium heat in a saucepan where you can see the color. (For tips on making a dry caramel, see Pastry God David Lebovitz. Whisk the sugar as it melts to ensure it heats evenly. When the sugar is a lovely dark copper color and you can smell that it smells adequately caramelized, turn off the heat, add the butter all at once, and stir it in. Then add the cream, stir to incorporate, and store in glass jars in the refrigerator.

This will make more than you need for macarons, but really, you’ll thank me, because it’s heaven over ice cream or apples or pears or …