If you walk into any good Patisserie these days, you’ll see trays of colourful macarons with every flavour combination you can imagine.
These delicate treats are made from combining meringue with ground almonds, to create sweet nutty shells that melt into a chewy centre filled with buttercream, jam or a ganache.
Their petite size makes eating just one an impossible task!
How Do You Make A Great Tasting Macaron?
After years of baking macarons in the bakery, we’ve learnt a lot about what makes the perfect macaron.
So let’s start with how to make the perfect macarons so you can whip up a batch of these iconic French treats at home.
1. It’s Important to Age Your Eggs
Before diving in to make your meringue, leave the egg whites in a container to ‘age’ for 24 hours. This allows the egg whites to dehydrate slightly and lose some of the water, giving you sturdier macaron shells that hold their shape.
2. Finely Ground Almonds
For our Macaron Kits we import finely ground almonds direct from France. If you’re buying ground almonds from a local supermarket, we’d recommend putting them through a sieve several times before mixing with your meringue to ensure your mixture is nice and smooth.
3. Pop Air Bubbles Before Baking
Air bubbles will burst whilst baking, leaving behind craters in your macarons. After piping, use a cocktail stick to remove any rising bubbles that come up through the mixture.
4. Let Them Rest Before Baking
Once piped, pop the kettle on and leave your macaron shells to form a slightly hard shell, that you can lightly touch without sticking. This skin will hold together as it bakes and create the iconic crackled sides around the base known as ruffled feet!
5. Invest In A Good Thermometer
If your recipe calls for an Italian meringue, you’ll need to be spot on with the temperature of your sugar, to hot and you’ll scold the mix, to cold and you’ll have rather gloopy looking macarons.
If you want to save the trouble of buying the ingredients and a thermometer, pop one of our Italian meringue based macaron kits in your basket and we’ll send you all the dry ingredients including a reusable thermometer in one!
