Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Daring Baker's Challenge: Macarons


The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.



Well, this certaily was one successful challenge... I'll try again maybe changing recipe, but I really enjoy challenges this is why I'm part of the Daring Bakers !!
I was sure it would have been a failure so I just filled them with nutella and raspberries jam, but please visit all the others' wonderful creations around !!

Recipe

Ingredients

Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)
Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)
Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)
Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.
2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.
5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).
6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.


15 comments:

Jennifer said...

Beautiful job! I love the plate, too!

Rosa's Yummy Yums said...

Your macarons are lovely! Very well done!

Cheers,

Rosa

Federica Simoni said...

favolosi!! chissà che buoni!

Winnie said...

Those look delicius! Splendid job on the challenge!

Cindystar said...

Oh Natalia, che strazio! ...intendo i miei macaroons,i tuoi vanno benone!
Sto postandoli, anche se me ne vergogno un ppo'...non sono cresciuti per niente, non hanno fatto il classico piedino d'appoggio...c'èqualcosa che non ha quadrato con la cottura...per me ricetta no,non sose avrò voglia di ripeterla...menomale che di gusto sono buoni...anche se me li aspettavo più croccantelli,ma evidentemente sono proprio malriusciti.
Come li chiamiamo in italiano?...non sono proprio amaretti...
Complimenti ancora per i tuoi!

Engineer Baker said...

Wow - nutella and raspberry jam sounds like the perfect no-fuss filling idea! And that's definitely macaron success - kudos!

Ivy said...

They look perfect and nutella and raspberry filling sounds delicious.

Dewi said...

Nutella sounds pretty good for the macarons. FYI, I just found out that you live in Rome, I was just there for 3 days. We could have to get together.

Kitchenlander said...

Sembrano belli fragrantini!
Sara' quel piedino bello in evidenza!

Anonymous said...

Yay! They look wonderful. Great job!

Rachel said...

I used Nutella too..Nothing could ever go wrong with using it :)

enza said...

leggo qui e la commenti negativi sulla ricetta, c'è chi l'ha abbandonata al primo tentativo fallito.
invidio la tua collarette a me son rimasti tipo frittatina.
ma ci riprovo, oh se ci riprovo

Jill @ Jillicious Discoveries said...

What a great idea to combine raspberry with Nutella! They look delicious! :)

Lauren said...

Your macarons look amazing! Wonderful job!

linda said...

Your macarons look delicious! Thought about sandwiching them with Nutela but went with dark chocolate ganache instead.