Thursday 10 November 2011

Cappuccino Macarons


I've conquered the macarons!! :D Unfortunately not the filling. Sigh.

This must be the fourth or fifth time I'm baking these delicious morsels but only the 2nd time I've got them right! Unfortunately another problem arose, half of the 51 shells came out cracked. :/ Will have to google to troubleshoot. Other than that issue, they were almost perfect! Light, crispy outside and absolutely chewy inside. And who could forget the adorable feet?! It's the baking process which I could just sit in front of the oven and wait patiently for. (:


Here's the recipe from


Ingredients (makes about 40 shells)
  1. 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar
  2. 100g ground almonds
  3. 3 egg whites (left uncovered in the fridge for 1-3 days to "dry out")
  4. a pinch of salt
  5. 3 tablespoons of caster sugar
  6. 2 teaspoons of instant black coffee dissolved in 1 teaspoon of boiling water
  7. Cocoa powder for sprinkling
Method
  1. Line baking trays with greaseproof paper and measure out your ingredients
  2. In a dry mixing bowl, whisk with an electric hand-held mixer the egg whites and salt until they will only just hold a stiff peak
  3. Continue to mix on medium while adding the caster sugar a teaspoons at a time until thoroughly incorporated. Mixture should be thick, white and glossy
  4. Add the coffee and mix gently until the colour of the mixture is even. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl
  5. Sieve the icing sugar and ground almonds into the meringue mixture
  6. Slowly and gently fold in the sugar and almonds until it is smooth (this could take some time)
  7. The mixture shouldn't be runny but a molten mass
  8. Fit your piping bag with a 1 cm nozzle, fill bag with mixture and pipe evenly sized rounds - about 5cm across - onto the baking sheets
  9. Tap the baking trays sharply once on a firm surface to expel any air bubbles
  10. Sieve some cocoa powder on top of the macarons
  11. Leave the macarons to sit for about 15mins-1hr and no longer (this very important so that they can from a shell and grow feet later)
  12. Preheat the oven to 170C
  13. Bake macarons one tray at a time in the middle shelf of the oven for about 10-12mins.
  14. Remove to cool for about 15mins before removing gently to cool further on a rack




If you're not successful the first time, fret not, you can always try again. (:
I'll be back with more tips in a later post.

Amy.

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