Macarons à Suivre (Macarons to be continued...)

For the second night in a row, I am covered in chocolate and sugar and I am sad to say that it is not because of a hot fireman. Two nights, four attempts and a proper French Macaron remains to be baked, assembled and eaten in my kitchen.

Not to be confused with Macaroon (the coconut flavored sweets), Macarons are small fluffy cookie sandwiches often filled with some sort of custard or chocolate ganache. Macarons are made out of whipped egg whites. Macarons are sweet and heavenly which is why I wanted to make them -- plus they cost about $2.50 a piece. My plan was to make them by Friday  so that I can give them to my sis during her birthday dinner and everyone would be so impressed they will flood me with compliments. I need validation. Well, my kitchen won. It was a sweep. In all fairness Macarons are one of the most difficult desserts to make and I was warned.

Macarons are all about the technique. You can search the web for a Macaron recipe and there are countless tips and tricks.

The ingredients: 2 egg whites, 1 cup of powdered sugar, 5 tbsp of granulated sugar, 3 tbsp of unsweetened coco powder and powdered almonds.

THE THIRD IS NOT THE CHARM

Attempt 1:

It looks like dog poop. Biggest mistake for this batch: Swirling the batter onto the parchment. There were obviously other mistakes, like I don't think I  whipped the eggs enough and folded the dry ingredients to the whites one too many folds. It was very difficult to incorporate the dry ingredients.

Attempt 2:

No more swirl but still a hot mess. It is extremely difficult to get rid of those peaks. Also, I do not own a pastry bag so I used a Ziploc. 

Attempt 3:

When I got these out of the oven (which you cook for 15 minutes), I was excited because they looked slightly better -- but then I picked up the cookie and as you can see it was bottomless. I am not sure what went wrong there.

The next day, I kept thinking about what I did wrong:

• Were the almonds not "powdered" enough? 
• I powdered the almonds by putting sliced almonds into a food processor. They weren't powdered just finely chopped.
• Were the egg whites not whipped right?
• I don't think I have ever successfully whipped egg whites. They are suppose to be room temperature (but mine were probably still too cool), I used a hand mixer instead of a standing mixer and I may have added the granulated sugar too early to egg whites, I'm not sure.

ATTEMPT 4:

Changes I made this time around:

• Almond extract instead of actual almonds.
• Use three egg whites instead of two because the last time, there was too much of the dry ingredient and not enough egg whites.
• Use less powdered sugar and chocolate powder.
• Make absolutely sure egg whites are room temperature and use glass bowl instead of a metal one.

They are sad, beaten and broken.

I actually made the chocolate filling this time around and tried to assemble the Macarons. The egg whites were a little fluffier but I'm still having a hard time folding the dry ingredients into the egg whites. This batch didn't taste as good as the first 3 because I didn't use almonds. Almonds are definitely better tasting than the extract.

Instead of assembling the rest, I dipped them into the chocolate to hide the cracks.

So, I guess they are now flour-less chocolate cookies topped with chocolate ganache. I'm still a little nervous about serving these to my co-workers though.

For a parting thought, here is what a "perfect" Macaron should be like:

Now I will stew over what else I can change or improve to finally get that ever elusive Macaron. Stay tuned...