OK, so here is my first attempt at the The Daring Baker challenges. See http://www.thedaringkitchen.com for details - pretty much, you are assigned a recipe for the month, and must make that recipe, take pictures and post a blog about said recipe. This month's recipe was for French macaroons with filling. I decided to do class almond macaroons with a mocha ganache filling.
For full instructions on French macaroons, please see the front page of The Daring Kitchen. I'm just going to highlight my experience with the macaroons.
The first part of the recipe was to whip egg whites and fold in a combination of almond flour and confectioner's sugar. Here is what the batter looked like after doing so:
The batter was then piped onto Silpats and baked in a cool oven for 5 minutes, removed from the oven, and then baked in a hot oven for 7 - 8 minutes. I found that I had to bake my macaroons a little longer than the instructions said in order to get a firm, non-sticky cookie. Since it had been years since I had worked with a pastry bag and tips, I also had a helluva time piping the cookies - it wasn't until my very last batch that I had pretty looking cookies. This is what the cookies looked like going into the oven:
The macaroons after being baked:
After the cookies were baked and cooled, it was time to fill them! I decided to do a mocha ganache because (a) it's super easy and (b) I LOVE ganache. All I did was heat 1 cup heavy whipping cream on the stove until it bubbled around the edges (NOT boiling) and poured it over 8 oz of chopped chocolate and 1 teaspoon espresso powder. I stirred until smooth and chilled in the refrigerator for about two hours. Here is a picture of the completed and filled French macaroons:
The recipe made many more macaroons than this, but there were the ones that I actually got a picture of! The true French macaroon is supposed to have a "foot" at the bottom (see the picture at The Daring Kitchen) however I tried two different techniques to get a foot at the bottom of my cookie and was unsuccessful both times. I look forward to trying this recipe again, possibly adding different flavors to both the macaroon and to the filling.
