Making French Macarons… Like a BOSS

I finally talked a friend into taking a cookery class at Betty's with me!! After our trip to Paris, Regine and I decided to sign up for a French Macaron half-day class at Betty's and had so much fun. 

One good tray of chocolate macarons

We had heard macarons are quite fiddly, but we didn't quite realize how fiddly there were until we tried to make them. You have to whip the warmed egg whites and sugar until it becomes a certain density, then add the almond flour, more sugar, and whatever flavoring & coloring ingredients, stir it until it change to a different, specific density, then pipe it into very tidy circles. 

Taking pride in our hard work

If your batter is off by a few degrees or grams, if there is any air in your piping bag, or if your piping technique is poor, your macarons will be sub-par. One out of three of my trays turned out passable, the rest were either cracked, lumpy, or otherwise misshapen. Thankfully, they all tasted delicious.  

My friend piping away on the lemon macarons

We made grand cru chocolate macarons,

Finished product - chocolate macarons

and lemon macarons.

Finished product - lemon macarons

I have since attempted to make the raspberry macaron recipe they included in our recipe binder. I got everything correct, but I only had a star tip for my piping bag. The finished product was a delicious, triangular, pointed, lopsided macaron with raspberry filling. And because I used arrow root in place of the corn starch in the filling, the filling never quite set properly. Sounds like I have more practice ahead of me. Oh, darn!

Reg and I talked the class up so much, now five of my friends and I are all signed up for a 'Teatime Treats' class in the near future. Yay!! :-)