I had told myself that the first time I made macaroons I would make it with my brother. Well, the opportunity just wasn't there, so I did the next best thing. Making macaroons for the first time with my friends :D The photos in this post are taken by Sophie.
Measuring out the sugar
Whisking the egg whites
Measuring the almond meal
Checking the recipe!! The most important part!!!! ;) (directed to Pamela)
Blending the almond meal. I am hoping that it will make it finer, but I don't think it did anything ;) I am just kidding myself :D
At least I tried ;)
Stirring sugar and water to make a sugar syrup
It was so hard to know when to stop stirring and start checking the temperature!! I think this was the most complicated part of the recipe ;) My tip: By calm (unlike my hysterics;))
Jennifer and I showing our anxiety at the sugar syrup (as you can see, I was more anxious than Jennifer ;))
Whisking the egg whites
Adding the sugar syrup to the egg whites, making the Italian meringue
Adding the food colouring ;) A drop at a time
As you can see, the colouring didn't really work. We must have put 20 drops of red food colouring, and it was still pale pink. What do they put in those things? ;)
Mixing up the Italian meringue (syrup mixed with egg) and French meringue (sugar mixed with egg) mixtures to make the macaroon batter.
Folding it all together
Holding my breath hoping that it will all stay together!
Now the piping begins!!! We had printed off some templates, and placed those under the baking paper on baking trays, so we knew where to pipe. Yay!!
Starting to pipe
Jennifer doing an amazing job piping the batter. We realised later that we piped these too big, and so they stick together :(
The first few macaroons looking awesome and perfectly rounded :D
The technique we had come up with was to swirl the piping bag around in circles. I think it worked quite well :)
Sophie even gave the piping a go!!
And the batter kept coming, so we ended up with four trays of macaroons.
Here is Pamela's beautiful piping :)
In the oven. As you can see, the first piping we did we piped too large, and so they were sticking together.
The first batch of macaroons out of the oven!!
This is how Sophie waits for the macaroons :D
The first macaroon I sandwiched together!
We decided to sandwich them together with this awesome bramble and apple jam that a friend made. The jam was kind of bitter, so the sugariness of the macaroon worked well to balance out the sweet/sour ratio.
The delightful macaroons that were our first batch that we made!! I can't believe I am saying that: We ACTUALLY MADE these lovely macaroons!!! :D
I had a request from my brother to make some more when I go to see him in April, so we will be making them again soon :D
As a testimonial of the awesomeness of these cookies, my friend (who works at PatisserieValeri (a cafe with amazing cakes)) said that our macaroons were better than they were at her cafe!! I was almost in tears ;)
Guys, we are challenging ourselves to make these recipes, not because we want to bake ourselves to death, but because we want to raise awareness of the need to give and pray for those children who go without food. Right now there is a food shortage in East Africa, and so it would be so encouraging for us if you could click on the tab above called East Africa Crisis Appeal and donate towards bringing the much needed support in these areas.
Thank you very much for reading this blog post, and stepping up to help those less fortunate than us!!
