No, those are not rice cakes. That disastrous mess was attempt #1. It was a pretty humbling (and heart-breaking) experience opening the oven to flip the baking sheet only to find the macarons had become a baking sheet! Thankfully, I had split the original recipe in two because I figured I would need more than one attempt. The only problem was that none of the macaron troubleshooting tips I found on blogs addressed the, “what to do when your macarons explode into each other" issue. I might just be the first person to have ever encountered that problem. I think it was from severely under-beating the meringue. The one silver lining was that they tasted amazing!

I was worried I’d end up having to use that photo as my thumbnail and planned on owning it by smothering some ganache between two sheets. So there was a lot of pressure the very next day when I measured the last of my almond meal for attempt #2. The thing with macarons is that procedurally, they are pretty straight-forward. But everything has to go incredibly right for them to turn out well. There’s a bit of guesswork/self-doubt, but the moment I opened the oven door and saw this:

there were almost tears of joy. Followed by, “yo why dem two macarons holding’ hands?!" Followed by me dancing to Pharrel’s “Happy". Followed by an Irish folk dance. Yeah, I don’t know how the scene evolved into an Irish folk dance either - it all happened reflexively. In fact, I don’t know if such a thing exists, but I can only describe the instance as a “Baker’s High". I guess you just have to try this recipe for yourselves to understand what I’m talking about ;).

After preparing a very simple ganache and assembling the sugar sandwiches, I ended up with these little beauties:

DEEE-LI-CIOUS!

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Recipe

Ingredients - makes about 18 macarons

Sift the almond meal and icing sugar, twice. Discard (or eat) any large almond meal chunks that do not make it through the sieve. Then, mix the almond meal, icing sugar, and salt until everything is evenly distributed.

Beat the egg whites at a low speed until they are foamy. Slowly increase the speed as you gradually add the caster sugar. Beat until the meringue is shiny and stiff peaks form. When you think the meringue is ready, beat for another 2 minutes. This takes about 6-10 minutes. You may choose to add a few drops of gel food colouring at this stage, and then beat for about 10 seconds.

Macaronage:

Fold the almond meal mixture into the meringue with a baking spatula, scraping the sides of the bowl and pulling the mixture into the centre. This is the most crucial step of the process. You don’t want to under or overmix the batter as this can lead to cracked or flat macarons. You want to fold until the batter is smooth (i.e. the dry ingredients have been evenly incorporated) and viscous. It helps to watch some videos to get a better idea of when the batter has been sufficiently folded.

Transfer the batter to a piping bag (I use sandwich bags without decorating tips), and pipe 1 inch circles onto a baking sheet covered with non-stick parchment paper.

Rap (bang) the baking sheet against the counter, three times per side, to get rid of any air bubbles. Let the macarons stand for about 30 minutes until you can feel a dry shell form on its exterior. This maintains the shape of the macaron tops as they rise while baking. Preheat the oven to 300F while the macarons are standing.

Bake at 300F or 150C on the lowest rack for 20 minutes. Rotate the pan at the 10 minute mark to ensure they bake evenly.

For the Ganache: I just warmed 30mL of cream on the stovetop and added it to a 100g chocolate bar (I only had milk chocolate at home), then mixed until the chocolate melted. Pipe a dollop of the ganache on a macaron shell and sandwich another shell on top.

Enjoy & Good Luck! :)

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Useful Links:

Videos:

Macaron Troubleshooting:

http://misohungrynow.blogspot.ca/2011/01/troubleshooting-macaron.html