My Latest Addiction: Baking French Macarons

I recently found a new addiction, I called it 'addiction' since even if I go to work, I would go to the baking aisle just to look for the ingredients that I need to bake another batch of it. I am addicted to perfecting the art of baking those finicky french macarons. French macarons are those colourful meringue-based cookie filled with your own choice of fillings (cream cheese, buttercream, ganache, etc.) It is completely different from MACAROONS which are make of those coconut meat. Since I seriously can't find a bakery here in scarborough that sells these delish sweets, I decided to just learn how to make them. Learning is easy, but the actual process is the complete opposite. It took me four tries to finally achieve a perfect result. You need to have accurate measurements of ingredients, right temperature even humidity is a factor, and a whole bunch of patience. I consulted almost all video tutorials that you can find in youtube just to know what would be the right technique in making them. The first try, the cookie was undercook since a lot of the cookies were stuck from the parchment paper and they were super hollow. I made it with my friend grace and what's so interesting about it was we manually beat the egg whites! It was baking/arm exercise at once! I had a lot of fun baking them but although it was not the result that we were hoping for, the cookies with the buttercream filling that we made tasted good. The second batch that I made was almost there. The only problem I encountered was there was still a bit of cracking on the shell but it was not that hollow and, the chocolate buttercream that I made became so runny because I forgot that I placed my butter on the stove top so it was all melted. It was so tasty but, the filling was dripping whenever I try eating them. Third, was the worst! I can't even believe what happened. The cookies became soooooo thin and hard! If you are from the Philippines and you know the cookie "Pasencia".. yep! i discovered the art of making those cookies accidentally! HAHAHAH! I was so disappointed by that batch. I even had my friends over when I baked them and because of that, they witnessed my epic failure. =p For sure, that third try made me inspired to try to really perfect the 4th batch. I seriously went to read all the articles about the failed macarons and how did that happened. I tried to remember everything I've done wrong and took note of it. I checked the consistency of the batter, the right way of "macronage", measured my ingredients compared to my "that-would-be-fine-i-guess" way of measuring, and making sure that the batter was set properly before putting it in the oven. I am so glad that I got my freaking FEET! my parents even ate half of them. I am a happy macaron-baker! hopefully I can continue making almost perfect macarons coz for sure, I would be baking more of them and play with different flavours and colours. I want to make a chocolate macarons with cream cheese filling tomorrow. Hopefully it would yield good results!

Here are some images of my macarons baking journey. Blame this new addiction to me not blogging often (yes blame it to others!)

This was the 1st trial

The super failed trial

my 2nd one

and this was the 4th try! see those much-loved feet!! =)

If you have any questions and comments on things about french macarons, I would gladly answer them if I can. But I want to let you know that I am no expert on this. Thanks for stopping by =)


=) love love love *watching Kristv as of the moment, hence the last words*

=) deah

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