Macarons à la rose - Rose Macarons

Another great recipe from my Macarons book by Gaëlle and Johan Crop! It was my first time in a long time trying out the French meringue method again so I was preparing a few days in advance. I ground the almond powder and powdered sugar together and let them air dry for 3 days. I also left the egg whites out of the fridge for 3 days.

I ran into a few problems though: my macarons barely had any feet and some cracked right in the middle. As I piped the macaron mixture on parchment paper, there were peaks that didn't smooth out, leaving me with not-so-smooth-looking shells! I was a bit disappointed but I have to admit they tasted almost like the ones from the shop!

Macarons au café - Coffee Macarons

Last year I had visited a macaron shop in the downtown area of Montreal and wrote a post about it! The owners of that shop have written a book with all the recipes of the macarons they sell there and guess what? I got it for Christmas! It is such a beautiful book! I will attempt to make my favorite macaron one day, caramel fleur de sel.

This week, I made my first macaron from that book, Macarons au café (or Coffee Macarons) following the Italian meringue method. The recipes are planned out for you, dividing the tasks to make each macaron in days. For these, Jour 1 consisted of making the chocolate-espresso ganache and Jour 2 consisted of making the shells and assembling them. They turned out a success, even if I used dark chocolate instead of milk for the ganache! I only think that I should have ground the almond powder more because my macaron shells turned out looking a bit grainy. I'll be doing that next time one day or two before and letting it dry. I can't wait to try making more! Here is their in-store catalogue!

Blueberry Macarons

Everytime I'm in the Mont Royal area downtown, I make sure I stop either by La Maison du Macaron or the newly discovered Point G. I've tried many of their flavors and now believe that there isn't one macaron that tastes bad. Even the weird ones like Balsamic Vinegar are delicious!


Seeing that I've been having more of these petits four lately, I decided to give them another shot. I had used the french method last time and had some trouble with the batter that had ended up far too liquidy to pipe out. This time, I chose to use the italian method which was said to be easier to work with for beginners.




I followed the detailed instructions and tips on Mélanger (the italian method follows the french) and found the batter much easier to pipe out! They didn't turn out flat like with the french method! Nice!

However, there are some things I would do differently next time. I would double my pans when baking because my first batch burnt slightly. I would fold the batter a bit more after adding the egg white + almond mixture to the meringue to get rid of all the lumps. Also I couldn't find egg white powder anywhere, so I had to omit it. I wonder what that would change...

The recipe for these blueberry macarons can be found on Mélanger's blog! I suggest to let the filling in the fridge for a couple of hours so it can be really thick when filling the macarons. Absolutely delicious!

La Maison du Macaron

I was aware of the cupcake shops in Montreal. But I had never considered that there were any macaron shops around! I don't know why it never crossed my mind before: Montreal has many French bistros, bakeries and restaurants since French is the official language and the France had colonized the area (called Nouvelle-France) a long time ago. I only recently learned about a shop called La Maison du Macaron (the site is only available in French) and was very curious to see what flavors they had available.

The little shop was crowded when I entered and I immediately noticed the large macarons decorated with raspberries. They also had one called Mac'honoré fraise et pistache that looked divine! I didn't take any pictures inside the shop because was afraid the préposé would shoo me away but you can find them on their website under Produits > Nos desserts aux fruits frais.

Some of their macarons flavors were coffee, lemon, raspberry, blueberry, fleur de sel caramel, rhum and raisin, strawberry rhubarb, baileys, litchi and tea, maple and grapefruit, pistachio. This gave me great ideas for my future macarons! I chose to try a blueberry one and a fleur de sel caramel one.

The blueberry macaron was very soft and I think it was because the weather was unusually warm! The centre tasted a lot like blueberry jam which was a bit disappointing.

I really loved the fleur de sel caramel one though. It was a bit sweeter but delicious! They also had some macarons glacés, which I'm guessing had an ice cream filling..

La Maison du Macaron

4479 De la Roche (corner Mont-Royal)

Montreal

Macarons à la Framboise - Raspberry Macarons

I've been planning to make these macarons for the past week. I had made them with my boyfriend a few years ago, but they had turned out rather flat.. still delicious though! This time, I was feeling confident. I did my research: I read and reread Tartelette's "Demystifying Macarons" (a must for beginners), checked out some blogs like La cuisine Mercotte and chefNini and even found some good tutorial videos on Youtube (you'd be surprised)!

It's really different knowing all the steps in theory and actually doing them. Everything went well until the ''macaronnage'' part. I added the egg whites and almond powder to the meringue and kept stirring cause there were lumps. I think I stirred to much though, over 50 times for sure (Tartelette suggests). Then I dipped the measuring spoon into the powdered food coloring container and it flew everywhere! I can be so clumsy! As I tried to pipe out the dough onto the baking sheet, I couldn't control how much was being piped out! Either the tip I used was too big (Ateco 807) or the mixture was too liquid. So I ended up with large deformed shapes. Finally when they came out of the oven, they looked flat just like the last time I had made them! I was so discouraged at this point, I didn't even want to fill them with the raspberry jam. Half of the macarons didn't peel off the parchment paper...

I will not give up though. I want to achieve those pretty, colorful macarons! I tried my macarons this morning, after I had left them in the fridge for the night and they still tasted good. Better, actually.

**********

Macarons à la Framboise - Raspberry Macarons

Adapted from ''Demystifying Macarons'' by Tartelette

100g egg whites

50g granulated sugar

200g powdered sugar

110g ground almonds

Food coloring of your choice

Raspberry jam at room temperature

With whisk attachment in stand mixer, whip egg whites to a foam and gradually add granulated sugar until you obtain a glossy meringue (you should be able to turn the bowl upside-down).

Combine powdered sugar and ground almonds in a food processor and grind them to break sugar lumps and combine almonds with it evenly.

Add powdered sugar and ground almonds mixture to the meringue, folding them. Give quick strokes in the beginning to break the mass and then slow down. The whole process should not take more than 50 strokes.

(This is when I added the food coloring. I think I should have added it with the powdered sugar and ground almonds instead to minimize strokes.)

Fill pastry bag with plain tip and pipe small round (1.5 inches in diameter) onto parchment paper on baking sheets.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F and let macarons sit out for around an hour to harden their shells a bit. Bake 10-12 minutes. Let cool completely before spooning some raspberry jam on one shell and sandwiching with another. (Macarons taste best after being placed in the refrigerator for a few hours.)