I was first introduced to the Macaron in San Francisco at the Ferry Building. I sampled three different flavors: rose, hazlenut, and vanilla, and as soon as I took my first bite I was hooked! The texture of macarons is very interesting. They have a crusty outside, a chewy inside, and a gooey filling sandwiched in between. They get their fluffiness from meringue and their chewiness from almond flour, and come in an infinite combination of colors and flavors.
I decided for my macaron I didn't want to just do the standard vanilla, I wanted to try a rose one because it was my favorite flavor in San Fran. How naive I was, I didn't even make it far enough to actually put the rose flavoring in anything! haha Not only was I going to make macarons from scratch, but I also thought it would be easy to make almond flour. Take it from me, just buy the bag of it at the grocery store! In addition to using almond flour at the right concistency, there is also a delicate balance between under and over mixed macarons. Although my batter came out pretty in pink, apparently I had erred on the side of over rather than under..... The cookies were flat and brown around the edges (not good). I couldn't even get them off of the wax paper (more on that later). They were such a failure I didn't even take a picture of the end product.
Determined not to be beat by the macarons, I made another batch the next day. This time I beat the meringue a little longer and used store bought almond flour instead of my own. They were definitely fluffier this time! Unfortunately they were still inedible.
Ok now for my tangent on wax paper.... HOW did it take me this long to figure out it is NOT the same as parchment paper??! Granted we never had parchment paper growing up, only wax paper, but still.... This whole macaron experiment is becoming to be a very humbling experience!
Still refusing to give up on my macaron dream, I decided to try again today. After my revelation regarding the wax paper, I promptly purchased a silicon baking liner on amazon, and I have been itching to try it out. They actually look like macarons!! Yaaaaayyy!!!
They were still really sticky and hard to get off the mat, but they were edible, which is better than last time :) I'm still not done with this whole macaron business.... I'll get you next time my pretties...
