French Macarons
These beautiful, gluten-free macarons are a little more complicated to make, but worth the effort. The texture is slightly chewy and the filling can be customized to suit all sweet-tooths. I’ve been testing recipes for holiday cookie making so my cookies are red and green, but they are so sweet in any color palette you like.
Tips:
Make sure your eggs are at room temperature. They whip up quicker that way. If you forgot to take out your eggs. Place them in a bowl of warm water for 10 minutes.
Make sure your bowl is free of any grease when you whip the egg whites.
Stiff peaks refers to when you lift your beaters and the egg whites on the end of the beaters stand straight up. If they flop over too much then continue to beat.
You can make superfine sugar by pulsing granulated sugar in a food processor for 30 seconds.
Make sure you measure the dry ingredients as written in the recipe to avoid adding too much flour to the recipe.
French Macarons
Makes 24
PREP 60 minutes
COOK 20 minutes
INGREDIENTS
1 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar
1 cup almond flour
3 large egg whites, at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup superfine sugar
2 to 3 drops gel food coloring
1/2 teaspoon vanilla, almond or mint extract
Assorted fillings- chocolate ganache, Vanilla Buttercream, Nutella, Cookie Butter
INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F using the convection setting. Line 2-3 baking sheets with silicone mats, like Silpat.
Properly measure the confectioners' sugar and almond flour by spooning them into measuring cups and leveling with a knife. Transfer to a bowl; whisk to combine.
Sift the sugar-almond flour mixture, a little at a time, through a fine-mesh sieve into a large bowl, pressing with a rubber spatula to pass through as much as possible.
Beat the egg whites, cream of tartar and salt with a mixer on medium speed until frothy (see tips above). Continue to beat the egg whites on high speed for the next 5-8 minutes, while gradually adding the superfine sugar until the egg whites get to stiff peaks. It will be very white and shiny.
Add the egg whites to the bowl with the almond flour mixture. Draw a rubber spatula halfway through the mixture and fold until incorporated, giving the bowl a quarter turn with each fold.
Add the food coloring and extract. If you are doing more than one color, divide the batter before adding food coloring. Continue to gently fold the batter until the color is incorporated and the batter is smooth, about 2 minutes.
Place the batter in a pastry bag fitted with a 1/4-inch round tip. Holding the bag straight up, pipe 1 1/4” circular blobs of batter on the Silpat. You should be able to fit 24 cookies on each sheet. Firmly tap the baking sheet on your countertop to get air bubbles out of the batter.
The cookies need to dry out before you bake them. Depending on the humidity in your home this can take anywhere between 15 minutes to 60 minutes. I made these in November while the heat was on, so my cookies dried out very quickly. The tops will no longer be sticky when they are ready to bake.
Place an additional cookie sheet underneath each cookie sheet with the cookies on them. This will act like a shield and protect the cookies from heat.
Bake the cookies until they are shiny and rise about 1/8”, about 20 minutes. Place the cookie sheet on a cooling rack and allow the cookies to cool completely. Once cooled you can peel the macarons off the Silpat.
Use whatever filling you prefer to make these sandwich cookies. A thin layer is all you need. Enjoy!