Sunday, August 14, 2011

BAKED GOODS

This is what I did tuesday afternoon: making home made macarons. They're all gone now, but still, I wanted to share the recipe and maybe some tips with you since I for one never thought making your own macarons was possible (I thought I'd leave it to the pro's from Ladurée or Pierre Hermé or...), but in fact: IT'S TOTALLY DOABLE! Here's how you can make your own.



This is a recipe for apricot/lavender macarons from this book and here's what you'll need:

- 190g of hazelnut powder (if you can't find this, you can just as well use almond powder)
- 310g of icing sugar
- 150g of egg whites
- 95g of granulated sugar
- orange food colouring
- lavender flowers
- 250g of apricot jam



Ok, so this is our goal! Mine didn't look quite as orange as these did, but my food colouring wasn't that good. I'm told gel food colouring is much better than the ones I used so if you can get those: go for it!



Preheat your oven to 150° (that's Celcius on this end of the world!), mix the nut powder with your icing sugar in a bowl. Take another bowl to put your egg whites in and beat them with a hand mixer untill they're fluffy and stiff. While you're doing this, you're going to add the granulated sugar in 3 go's. Mix in the food colouring while you're at it.

Carefully(!) mix in the egg whites with the icing sugar & nut powder untill it's really really smooth. Lay out a silicon mat on an oven plate. You can also use parchment paper in stead of the silicon mat, but I found that the ones on the silicon mat preserved their round shape much better whereas the paper ones were all crooked and ... un-macaron like. Take a piping bag and pour in the mixture and use this to make little round macarons (don't put them too close to each other!)

All right so by now, your kitchen scene should resembe the above picture.



Bake these babies for about 9-10 minutes, take them out of the oven and let them cool off for at least 30 minutes. If you don't wait long enough you're going to ruin EVERYTHING so please don't do that.



Next, you're going to need apricot jam (mom's home made jam of course!) & lavender flowers (picked from our garden). The recipe says to mix the flowers with the jam, but these things have a LOT of flavour, so I decided to just put a few of them on the top of the macaron.



Ooh, an educational gif. So yes, this is what happens to the jam + cookies. It's easier to pair up ALL your macarons beforehand, just lay them out on your counter. Your macarons won't be 100% the same, so the most important thing is to just have a top & bottom that fits and in the end, it doesn't matter if you have large & small & middle sized macarons as long as tops & bottoms are paired up nicely.



And there you have it.. BOOYA! HOME MADE BABY!




To finish off, just put a drop of jam on top of the macaron and throw on some lavender flowers. Done & done! Happy munching :)!


24 comments:

Matthew Spade said...

i wish i liked them, though yours do look perfect

Stephanie said...

Oh lordy. Die zien er gewoon keiprofessioneel uit! I'm a sucker voor alles wat lavendel is, dus ook nogbis interessante combo van smaken... Misschien toch is proberen dan :)

Btw, Boy. by BoO bestaat ook nog hoor, er zijn twee lijnen voor de meisjes :)

kittenmasks said...

This is really nice! I don't think I'm there yet in terms of making it, but hopefully I'll draw up my cooking skills to par to try this out in a few months.

zmogutis said...

gosh!!!!!!!!!! looks yummy !!! :D

xoxo.

http://stylerhapsody.blogspot.com/

Allegra said...

OH MY GOSH, I wanted to make them sooo often but never ever had the guts to do it ^^ - thanks for sharing

Froso M. said...

OH MY! They look as if they were made in La Duree!

Kiss,
Froso from Style Nirvana.

a reference said...

I heard these are difficult to make, but I really want to try! Just found your blog! Like macaroons for the mind.

Anonymous said...

Merci beaucoup pour ton commentaire !
J'adore tes photos et j'adore la cuisine alors top !
Je deviens officiellement membre de ton blog. SI tu aimes mon blog suis moi j'ai aussi ma page Facebook :).

http://theladyjersey.blogspot.com

Xoxo

sara tardiff said...

I'm soso excited to make these, my mother and I had some at a bakery in florida last summer and just fell in love..but have never found a truly good recipe. I'll send you pictures if they turn out decent! C:

www.hiimsaratee.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

I am drooling right now, I must try to recreate this, thanks for such great instructions, and for stopping by & your comment :)

fashionableroad.blogspot.com

pink horrorshow said...

as much as I love both baking and macarons, I'll probably never bother trying to make any of my own. Too labor intensive!

Yours look beautiful and the garnishes are perfect.

Absolutely Mrs. K said...

oh my, i wish i had that latent! but unfortunately i don't! worst cook ever! looks delicious and i love the little details

Tamara said...

Look, what a professional cook you are!! These look incredible, I didn't really believe it was possible to make (good looking) macaroons at home...

J said...

bEAUTIFUL! Nice photos and blog! :)

http://liberty-walk-sara.blogspot.com/

Heather said...

nawww so gorgeous!

danica said...

i am definitely going to try this! your macarons look amazing - take that laduree!!!

{eugenialejos} said...

oh!! looks amazing girl! always your blog is great;)

eugenialejos said...

the last comment es for my other blog:)

Polley said...

I love apricot flavored anything! and I love that adorable gif! I think I need ti try this now....

roxanne said...

beautiful! i'm certainly no cook, but since people insist on pricing macarons at somewhere between arm and a leg, it might be nice to try this recipe out..

Brigadeiro said...

Wow! I never thought macarons are doable (although my mom keeps telling me otherwise), these look great!

Speaking of macarons, have you read the interview I worked on with Pierre Herme? It's in the latest issue of Peut Etre = http://www.peutetremagazine.com

xx
CC

Julie said...

Yummy! These look delicious! :)

Answer: Thanks sweetie! x

M'AS-TU VU said...

ow my, ik begin al te watertanden...lijkt wel een kunstwerkje. Keep on going lady!!

Kazuko said...

this is the first time that pictures of macaroons make me crave them. i've never had one because the macaroons made by "pros" look so artificial and dry. but yours... yum! wanna try :)

 

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