Not So Scary Macarons

Macarons are definitely a luxurious treat and buying them could set you back £20 for 12 which seems quite extravagant for such a quick eat. Making them yourself is much easier than you think; much of the difficult hype is poppycock, plus you can make them for a fraction of the cost. If you're able to gently fold dry ingredients into wet and have some basic piping skills you should have little trouble making them yourself. It just takes practice.

I first made them a few months ago when I took a macaron making course on a rainy Saturday afternoon in London. The instructor was a very jolly woman who was mad about them and showed us how easy they were to make. I think there were around 12 people on the course with a full range of baking experience and we all managed to turn out great to decent macarons. Best of all, she made sure we came home with at least a dozen macarons each.

To prove how easy they are to make, I made a batch last night to bring in for work. I halved the recipe and managed to make two-dozen and they’ve been well received in the office. 

Ingredients:

250g ground almonds

400g icing sugar

225ml egg whites

100g sugar

Flavouring of choice

Food colouring

Flavoured buttercream, ganache, or jam

 Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 160C/320F.
2. Line two baking sheets with non-stick liners and set aside.
3. Sift the icing sugar and ground almonds together in a bowl and set aside.
4. Whip the eggs to soft peaks and then add the sugar 1tbs at a time.  Add your food colouring and flavor and whip until fully incorporated until the egg whites are glossy.
   
5. Holding the mixing bowl pour a third of the almond mixture into the egg whites and fold in gently. I use a big scoop around technique that works well for me, but use whichever way works for you.
   
6. Pour the second third of the almond mixture and mix together thoroughly. Continue with the third as above.
7. If you want to add in pieces of freeze-dried fruit you can gently fold them in as well.
   
8. Gently pour half of the dough into a piping bag and tie off at the top and snip the bottom in a straight line – you could use a round tip for this as well.
9. Spread a small amount of dough onto the underside of the four corners of the liners to ensure they don’t pull up and ruin the piped macarons.
10. Begin piping small rounds in even rows on the liners taking care not to pipe them too close. As you can see I've piped these too close but I was able to separate them once they were cooked.
    
11. Once finished lightly smack the cooking sheet on the counter to get rid of any excess air bubbles.
12. Let the macarons dry for up to 30 minutes, or more if it’s a particularly humid day.
13. Place the macarons into the preheated oven and bake for 10-12 minutes turning the sheet halfway through.
14. Take out of the oven and completely cool before matching up pairs and filling with buttercream or ganache.

You can present them in a simple white box tied with a ribbon and really impress your friends or you can keep them all to yourself.

I’ve found using a non-stick mat/liner works better than greaseproof paper. I’ve made several batches using greaseproof with disastrous results and from now on it will only ever be the non-stick liner.

Practise Make Profiteroles

They say ‘practise makes perfect’ but I prefer to say 'practise makes profiteroles'! I've only ever attempted making them once before and it was a total disaster.

I have The Croc Bake Off in a week’s time and I’m thinking about making a salted caramel chocolate cake topped with a pyramid of cream filled profiteroles – something that will be a real show stopper. Hopefully it will be a sight to behold and lift what is already a scrumptious chocolate cake into the winner’s circle.

The last time I attempted to make profiteroles I was still in university and living in the US. I had never attempted to make anything like them before and I had never seen anyone make them either – the unknown was how I made a mess of things. When I started adding in the eggs I panicked and threw it out deciding it was better to buy them than persevere.

Thanks to the benefit of watching countless cooking programmes where they’ve shown the stages of the horrible doughy mess that miraculously turns into stretchy and smooth dough I knew what I was getting myself in for with this. Also, I have a lot more baking under my belt than I did when I was in my early 20s.

Here’s the recipe from my Le Cordon Bleu Patisserie & Baking Foundations cookbook.

Ingredients list:

Profiteroles

125ml water

125ml full fat milk

125g unsalted butter

5g salt

12g sugar

150g flour

4-5 eggs

1 egg slightly beaten for egg wash

Whipped Cream

250ml whipping cream

50g icing sugar

Salted Caramel

Chocolate Ganache (link to follow)

1.     Mix the water, milk, butter, salt and sugar in a medium saucepan and cook over a medium heat until the butter melts. Remove from heat and add in all of the flour at once and stir through completely. Replace the saucepan on the medium heat and stir continuously until the batter comes away from the sides and forms a ball. For the Americans out there it looks like the world’s thickest starter for cream gravy – for the British, well I’m not sure how best to describe it)

2.     Once a ball has formed you need to transfer the batter into a clean bowl and let it cool for about 5-10 minutes. Once cooled add in one egg at a time and mix until if is fully incorporated. This is when it gets a bit funky. Don’t lose faith and toss the effort into the bin like I did all that time ago. The egg will actually mix in and go from a clumpy, eggy and slimy mess to a stretchy and sticky dough. Just make sure you add them one at a time because you may not need all of the eggs.

3.     Once the batter is nice and sticky you should prepare the pastry bag with a round tip and fill the bag full of the dough. I like to put my pastry bag into a pint glass and fold back the sides to make it easier to fill. Once full of the dough I shake it down to the piping tip and twist the top to keep it from coming out.

4.     Finally, pipe rounds onto a silicon mat and put into a preheated oven at 220°C (425°F) and immediately turn the oven down to 205°C (400°F). When the profiteroles start to colour turn them around and bake until golden. Place on a wire rack to cool. (Don't forget to tap down the nipples on the rounds before putting them into the oven - you can give them an egg wash at this point to make them shiny)

5.     While the profiteroles are cooling pour the cream and sugar together into a mixing bowl with the whisk attachment and whip until stiff peaks form.

6.     Put the cream into a piping bag fitted with a piping tube tip and fill the profiteroles from underneath. Make sure to add plenty of cream so the profiteroles don’t taste like semi-sweet Yorkshire puds.

7.     Once you have filled the profiteroles you can stack them in a pyramid stack and drizzle over with the salted caramel or the chocolate ganache.