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Today we will make a special recipe, that takes approximately 10 min to prepare:
it is the recipe of Parisian macaroons.
To make macaroons, it is often not enough to simply read the recipe,
One needs to understand what is happening during the process of preparation.
In this simple version, i will explain neither why or how
but i will give all the necessary tips that will help you
develop 2 essential requirements: that is forming a good eye
and develop the technique of “macaroonage”.
The video is therefore divided into 4 stages:
the first one is the foaming of the egg whites.
The second one will deal with the mixing of the other ingredients.
The third one, and the most famous stage, will be the macaroonage.
And the last one is the forming of the crust and the baking.
So let's start: the foaming of the egg white.
You need to weight exactly 140g of egg whites.
The weighting of exact quantities is a must in this recipe,
so make sure a have a precise kitchen scale for this.
You may also take the whites from 4 big eggs,
or 5 small eggs, this would also be a good approximation of the quantity needed,
but then it wouldn't be an "Inratable" recipe.
The Inratable is exactly 140g.
The most important condition is that the eggs have to be at room temperature.
Take 180g of extra fine sugar and divide it in 2 separate cups.
We start the foaming of the whites by putting them in an electric mixer.
The first tip is to keep it at a low speed.
The faster you mix, the more air it incorporates and
the more the foam expands-this is not at all our purpose!
The second tip is to keep the mixer vertically.
Again this is to avoid incorporating air.
This is natural for mixers such as the one i'm using now, but not for those held in hand.
This is essential for obtaining a thick and compact foam.
During the forming of the foam, there are 3 crucial timings.
You need to observe and form a good eye.
First timing: when the whites just start to form a foam
They are no longer liquid and form a sort of furrows
- then hurry to add the first half of the sugar.
Always keep the speed constant. Just pour half, don't have to be very precise.
The second timing: when the withes form a beak or a bill, so look: No.
Not ready yet, it is too liquid.
We continue.
Now it's good!.
You see how the foam rests on the mixer?
It forms something like a bird nest.
Now we pour also the second half of the sugar
and we raise a bit the speed, not a lot though.
The third timing: the whites are ready when the sugar is completely dissolved.
To make sure it is dissolved, just take a little on the tip of your finger
and taste: the sugar particles shouldn't be felt anymore.
Look how nice it looks!
Stalactite, stalagmite.
Starting from now, the foam is thick and nice, it is Inratable!
If you mix 2-3 minutes more, is not going to make too much a difference.
We already have a creamy foam.
So now you already have the main ingredient for a good macaroon.
2nd Stage: The mixing of almond powder and powder sugar.
Our goal is simple: we want to weight exactly 160g of almond powder
and 160g of powder sugar.
We weight them, we sift them and then we put them together.
But pay attention: once you sift them, you lose a bit of their quantity.
With a common almond power, from the supermarket,
you lose a lot, somewhere around 15%.
With a good quality almond powder, you lose about 5%.
With the sugar you normally lose somewhere between 1%-5%.
The Inratable tip is as follows: according to the quality of the
ingredients you use, increase the quantities with the percentage mentioned.
Once sifted, you eliminate the surplus remained in the sieve, don't add it to the rest.
So weight approximately 184g of almond powder,
if it is from the supermarket, and 168g if it is of superior quality.
The MA-CA-RO-NAGE So what is this?.
The first tip: add the almond-sugar mixture to
the whites foam, never the other way around.
You add a bit of colorant powder, like i did here.
And now there are two stages of the macaroonage.
This is the first: you form a homogenous batter
by incorporating slowly the powder mixture into the foam.
Pay attention to how i fold: so now i use the spatula to flatten the paste.
I fold, i make sure i comprise all the mixture and i flatten.
This is the macaroonage.
Look, like this, i cut a bit into the surface.
So the macaroonage has 2 objectives:
the first is to scratch the surface in order to make the whites burst.
It is the albumin that it contains which rises and give this
shinny aspect to the batter and allows for the macaroon to grow.
The second objective is to liquefy a bit the batter.
Our batter is now too dense to be given the macaroon shape.
Imagine is you try to put it in small discs when it is so dense,
it is not going to grow like a nice and small macaroon.
So in short, just make sure you respect both stages: scratch the batter
to let the whites burst and also liquefy it a bit towards the end.
You stop the folding when the batter is still thick, but it flows a bit.
To form a good eye for this, just take from time to time
a little spoon from the batter and pour it on the baking sheet.
If it flows too easily, then it means you folded it
too many times, you should have stopped earlier.
If on the contrary it is too dense, then fold it a few more times.
By all means, once you have a shiny batter, the macaroons will be good enough.
Precision is only something that will make the aspect
of the macaroons more exquisite, but is not essential.
So it's not a capital requirement.
Laste stage: the crust and the baking.
You pour the batter in the macaroon shape on a baking sheet
and leave it for about an hour to form a crust.
If after one hour they didn't form a nice crust, you don't leave them for longer
instead you continue the recipe -you'll do better next time.
Continue with the baking because you still have
good chances that your macaroons will bake nicely.
It is a pleasure to simply see the collar forming, especially if it is your first time.
The macaroons have a good crust when you touch them
with the tip of your finger and they don't stick on it.
Pay atention to sources of humidity.
If you start washing the dishes close by, while the macaroons are crusting,
you will ruin them. They will crack.
So you'd better take them to a separate room and then do the dishes.
If you have a friend around, she will be happy to take the macaroons
in another room, so that she can watch while you do the dishes.
Next, you put them in the preheated oven for 12-14 minutes at 150 C degrees.
Do not place 2 plates one above the other-the one below
will maintain humidity and the macaroons will crack.
The macaroons are ready when the shells affix the bezel forming a sole unit.
My advice is to open the oven every 30 seconds after the first 12 minutes to check if they are done.
A macaroon baked for too long is dry.
You will learn in time that the best macaroon is the one taken out from the oven
just seconds before the shell is well affixed,
and maintains therefore a soft core. This again depends on how well your
eye if formed, and takes practice.
Finally you only need to fill the macaroon halves
with either a chocolate ganache or a butter/nuts/pistachio cream.
We have already shown how to make a Coffee, Feve de Tonga cream and a Lemon cream.
When you surf the internet you will find several tips like adding a bit of lemon,
a bit of salt, a double baking sheet to increase the heating from below etc.
All these are mere tweaks to secure a good result instead of
making you understand exactly the process of making macaroons.
Approximations that you apply hoping that it will work is not the Inratable strategy.
You need instead to develop a good eye and learn to "macaroonate".
If in spite of all this, you still fail to make good macaroons,
as i always tell you, just write to us and well...we will do the same.
Mail us about your troubles at pompom inratable.com,
pompom like the pompom girls, and you may win the chance
to participate in a live presentation of making macaroons.
Once you have formed a good eye and developed your technique of macaroonage,
this recipe won't take you more than 10 min of preparation.
A simple recipe that renders a fast and appealing result.
It is a small dose of sugar in a consistent desert,
it's colorful, nice looking,it's classy and you can offer it
on many occasions to make a good impression.