My kids looooove macarons. Which would be fine, but they can throw back a dozen easily and those little things are expensive! So in true practical mommy form, I decided to make my own. Feeling ambitious, I googled "easy macaron recipe" and found out that all I needed were 1 cup finely ground almonds, 1 2/3 cup powdered sugar, 3 egg whites, and 1/4 cup white sugar.
This is my third try and it's getting easier every time. The most time consuming part is sifting the ground almonds and powdered sugar together. It takes a while.
But you want it to look like this.
In another bowl, seperate the egg whites.
Beat until foamy.
Add white sugar and beat until you get soft peaks. I use a handheld mixer and this takes me at least 10 minutes so I do some squats. Like two and then I check Instagram.
If you want to add food coloring, do it here. Use gel food coloring as the water based ones can mess with the consistency of the egg whites.
Next, add the ground almonds and powdered sugar mixture a little at a time. I add it in 3 parts. Don't over mix. About 30 strokes total.
Pipe the batter onto parchment paper in rounds, leaving space in between. This is where I get lazy. For uniformity you can trace circles, but as you can see, I just wing it.
Let it sit out at room temperature until they form a hard skin on top. The recipe says about 1 hour, but I've done as short as 30 minutes and they still turn out. Do the dishes.
Preheat your oven to 285 degrees. These cookies are finicky so I recommend baking them one sheet at a time. I bake a little longer than 10 minutes. I press on them slightly to see if the bottom gives. They should pop off the parchment paper easily.
My son and I like the macarons plain and can just eat them unsandwiched. My daughter likes Nutella in the middle or I'll mix crunchy peanut butter and Nutella as a filling. That suits me just fine, but one day I'd like to make a lemon or pineapple filling.
But for now, these will do just fine in our household.
