Macarons

Finally, I made my first macarons. I used the recipe from a French-German blog called franzoesischkochen.de

 

The recipe states that it is very important to measure the ingredients very exactly to achieve the desired result. Furthermore, the egg whites should be some days old, which means you have to separate the egg one to five days in advance. Do not forget that the whites should have room temperature when used. 

So, what you need is:

36 g 'aged' egg whites
10 g sugar
45 g finely ground almonds
75 g powdered sugar

and time...

First, place the powdered sugar and ground almonds in a food processor and process until very fine. Then, sieve the sugared almond flour at least once, better twice. 

Then, beat the egg whites until soft peak, add the sugar and go on beating until stiff peak. I mean really stiff peak. If you think it is enough, go on for another minute. In three parts add the powdered almonds and fold under thoroughly, but carefully. 

Pipe the dough unto lined baking trays with a round nozzle. I only had a very fine round nozzle, so what I piped looked rather odd at first. 

Leave the macarons to set for 15 minutes (a bit less if the air is very dry, a bit more if it is rainy outside). Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 150°C. Then, bake them on 140°C (yes, you have to reduce the temperature then) for 12-14 minutes, each tray.

Pull the baking paper with the baked macarons onto a cool surface and let them cool down completely. Do not try to remove them before, they will stick to the paper.

When all shells are cooled down, search for matching ones. Now, decide what filling to use. For these, I used a crème fraîche chocolate filling.

For the filling, I mixed 200 g crème fraîche with 110 g melted chocolate and one tablespoon of sugar. This was way too much, but this mixture is delicious on fresh bread or rolls as well :) 

Place a dollop of the cream onto a shell and cover with the matching one.

Yummie :) I will definitely make them again. Maybe with another flavour/colour/filling? We'll see...