Macarons – those delicious meringue-based biscuits with a ganache filling – seem to have gained in popularity over recent years. (At least in New Zealand anyway!) Many bakeries and cafes now include them in their repertoire. Even McDonald’s McCafe have been known to sell them!
As a lover of all things meringue, and having tasted the sumptuous macarons at Bordeaux Bakery in Wellington, I found a recipe and tried making some. While they tasted delicious, they lacked the smooth top and distinctive circumference (referred to as the “foot”) of true macarons. When I saw Le Cordon Bleu cookery school in Wellington advertising a one-day course on how to make these delightful biscuits, I decided to enrol.
We spent the morning in a lecture theatre, of which the front was a kitchen. The tutor made three different flavours of macaron throughout the morning and explained to us all of the technicalities.
He provided the following tips for creating the perfect macaron:
- The amount of egg white needs to be precise and is measured in grams not number of eggs.
- To help give the macarons a smooth top, place the ground almonds and icing sugar (and cocoa if being used) in a food processor; process in about 3 bursts of 10 seconds each. Stir after each burst – this prevents the almonds from heating which will cause them to go to a paste.
- To further contribute to a smooth top, after processing the ground almonds and icing sugar, sieve them 2-3 times. Only sieve them, don’t manually push them through the sieve as larger unwanted lumps will go through.
- After piping the macarons onto the baking tray, resting the mixture longer before placing in the oven will make bigger “feet”.
- Once the macarons are in the oven, after about 5 minutes, briefly open the oven door to release moisture. This prevents the macarons from cracking on top. Repeat after another 5 minutes.
After a delicious lunch – cooked onsite, of course! – we spent the afternoon in one of the training kitchens, making our own macarons. We first made Chocolate Macarons, for which the recipe below is re-printed with kind permission from Le Cordon Bleu Wellington.
For more information about Le Cordon Bleu Wellington, visit http://www.lecordonbleu.co.nz.
Macaron au chocolat, meringue francaise (Chocolate macaron, French meringue)
Ingredients:
- 125g icing sugar
- 125g almond meal (ground almonds)
- 20g cacao powder (cocoa powder)
- 110g caster sugar
- 120g egg white
- Pinch salt
Method:
In a food processor, process the almond meal, icing sugar and cacao powder. Sieve mixture.
Add salt to sugar. Whip egg whites to full peak, gradually adding the sugar to egg white in stages. Make sure meringue is firm.
Massage dry ingredients into meringue until mixture has consistency of soft choux pastry.
Pipe 2.5cm diameter disks onto silicon paper (baking paper) and leave to sit for half an hour. Bake at 150ºC for about 12 minutes.
Milk Chocolate Ganache
Ingredients:
- 120g cream
- 170g Valrhona Jivara Milk chocolate, melted
- 20g Butter, melted to 40ºC.
Method:
Boil the cream.
Add cream slowly to melted chocolate.
Add diced butter at 40ºC.
Let cool down and pipe onto half of the macarons. Sandwich with the remaining macarons.
We also made raspberry macarons and were each able to take away with us the macarons we had made. It was tempting to start eating before I was even home! Because I had more macarons than could reasonably be eaten within a few days, I placed most of them in a container and froze them. They kept well in the freezer and were enjoyed by us and visitors over several months!
