Okay, so as many of you already know, I am OBSESSED about macarons. I was walking around Broome Street in SOHO, and I noticed a tiny shop selling macarons. Just like that, I was stuck fast to the display window. (Unfortunately, I had to pass this time... Rent is coming up T_T) But more so than eating macarons, I am obsessed about making them. Did I ever mention that it took me 8 failures to finally succeed? Yes, and each time, I was even more determined to get them right.

Now, many say that following the recipe to the exact does not indicate success. It takes skill and intuitiveness, which basically calls for experience. The reason macarons are so difficult to make is because they are a type of meringue cookies. Anything that involves meringue is... capricious, may I say. Meringue is difficult to handle and getting familiar with it takes practice.

In the case of macarons, that difficulty is taken up to another step. It is crucial to know the consistency of the batter. If you "kill" the meringue too much, the macaron hats won't rise and will become flat and brittle. However, if you don't kill the meringue enough, the hats will not have frills and will have a lumpy outer texture; they will also turn out pretty airy inside. This is why I failed 8 times. After all those trial-and-error experiences, I have finally gotten the "feel." However, this "feel" goes away if you don't make macarons for some time - it took me one batter to refresh it.

Anyway, ever since I bounced off the walls and squealed with joy for my first successful batch, I have been making macarons whenever I get bored. They take less than an hour to make, and they are a joy - both to me and to those who take a bite!

So- a couple of days ago, I got bored and decided to make some macarons. I was considering making chocolate macarons again, but remembering that my roommate loves black sesemae macarons better, I decided to go with the latter. And then I thought, why not make a post about this? So I took step-by-step pictures. I hope this helps any of you who are trying to bake successful macarons or are thinking of trying!

I got the recipe from David Lebovitz's blog.

Macaron Batter:

1 cup (100g) powdered sugar

1/2 cup powdered almonds

3 TBS (25g) black sesame powder

2 large egg whites

5 TBS (65g) granulated sugar

You can replace the black sesame powder with cocoa powder or whatever flavor you want to make your macarons in. I bought my black sesame powder at a Japanese super market.

I usually halve the recipe, which makes the perfect amount for me and my roommate. Also, I personally find that having the egg whites cold right from the refrigerator helps raise the meringue better. I've tried both methods, and the macarons turn out fine.

So, on with the process!!

1) Preheat the oven to 375F (180C). Sift the powdered sugar, almond powder, and black sesame powder into one bowl.

2) Mix the powders so that they all get mixed together evenly.

3) Start whipping the egg whites!

4) When the egg whites become foamy, start adding in the granulated sugar, one TBS at a time, as you whip.

5) Keep whipping the meringue until...

it is about 80~90% whipped. I usually stop when the peaks are kinda stiff like this. Make sure you don't overwhip the meringue!

6) Scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula to keep it nice and tidy.

7) Pour in half of the dry ingredients and carefully fold them into the meringue. This folding technique also takes some time to get used to. Just make sure that you handle the meringue very gently, because you don't want to let the meringue die just yet.

It gets kind of stiff and weird at first, but just keep on folding. To me, it kind of feels like I'm "rolling" the batter around, if that's help explain anything.

See? It does work out after all :)

8) When the first half has been loosely incorporated to the meringue, pour the rest of the other half.

Fold like before until the dry ingredients are mixed well into the meringue. For me personally, at the very end, I use the rubber spatula to "press down" into the batter, like I'm taking the air out of it. I do this just 2-3 times, and this makes the consistency perfect for me. However, this may not apply to all! Everyone has their own little ways of making the perfect macaron batter.

Now, the hard part - the consistency. What does a correct macaron batter look and feel like? Well, many people have described it as magma-like. Whatever the case, when you scoop the batter up with the spatula, the batter should ooze down slowly. If it doesn't ooze down, the meringue has not been killed enough. If it oozes down too fast, you've killed it too much. When the batter runs down to the rest of the bowl, it should kind of keep its shape but also slowly meld in with the rest of the batter. Sorry if I'm a bad explainer - this really is hard to explain. It's something you have to actually feel and look with your own eyes.

9) Scoop the batter into the pastry bag. I use a heavy duty zip-lock bag and cut off one corner.

10) Squeeze out the batter onto a covered pan into whatever size you want your macarons to me. Don't make them too big or too small. Just think - what would a good bite-size be?

As a side note, this part takes practice too. But don't worry - you'll get the feel of it in no time. Just place the tip right above the pan (so that the tip and the pan makes a right angle) and squeeze. The batter should spread into little circles like in the pictures below.

Some people use parchment paper, but I highly recommend the silicone pads, because the macaron hats peel off pretty easily on those. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SQUEEZE THE BATTER ONTO AN UNCOVERED PAN OR YOU WILL SUFFER.

If you have little peaks standing out, press them down with your finger.

And you will have nice, smooth macaron hats!

This batter made 1 and 1/2 pans - 18 hats = 9 macarons.

11) Rap the baking pans lightly a few times, and pop them into the oven! It depends on your oven, but it takes about 13-15 minutes. At around 10 minutes, I covered the pans with aluminum foil to keep them from browning too much.

And voila!! Beautiful, beautiful macaron hats with pretty frills :)

12) Fill with whatever filling you want. I personally like chocolate ganache filling.

Boil 1/4 cup of heavy cream and add 1/2 cup of semisweet chocolate chips. Stir until the chocolate has melted and let it cool. Pop it in the refrigerator to let it harden a bit. Make sure to let the ganache soften a bit before you fill the macarons.

13) Piece similar-sized hats together!

14) Enjoy. Yummmmmmmmmm-

I highly recommend that you put your macarons in an airtight container and let it sit in the refrigerator for a day to let the macaron hats and filling meld in together. It's better to eat them ASAP, but I believe you can keep them up to 1 week in the refrigerator or 2 weeks in the fridge (in an airtight container, of course!).

I am no professional, but I hope this helped some of you who are struggling to make the perfect macarons someday! Remember, you WILL succeed. For those who prefer to buy them instead, hope you enjoyed too!!

Tuesday. It was my day off from internship, and also a cloudy, gloomy day. My roommate was also out of town, so I decided to bake. I don't know why, but I seem to bake a lot when my roommate's not at home. 

Anyway, I first started off with some chocolate chip cookies in the afternoon (sorry, no pics). After a short nap and dinner, I decided to make some chocolate macarons. I halved the recipe to make less batter, because last time I had too much. (Also, I heard macarons should be eaten within a few days, so I thought it'd be better to make less.) 

I mixed in cocoa powder for the hats and made chocolate ganache for the filling. I used the Ghirardelli brand of semisweet chocolate chips, which was WAY better than the Nestle brand. The Nestle brand is too sweet, and its sweetness is the type that makes the inside of your mouth feel blah. 

I personally think that chocolate macarons are the best to make at home. Chocolate ganache is easy to make, and it obviously makes the chocolate macarons taste chocolatey. I can't quite explain, but with other flavors, I feel like it's hard to make a good filling that will appropriately express the flavors. Maybe if I had the right recipe and also the needed ingredients, it'll be easier... 

Anyhow, I definitely do want to make pistachio macarons some day!

Now, for some pics!

The macarons that were left after I ate like 3 or 4 LOL 

The hats and frills came out very very nice :)

I wish the filling showed more, but that would have made the macarons VERY sweet. 

After a bite! The crunchy outer shell, and the gooey insides :) 

Yum yum yum.

About a week or two ago, I went to Panhandlers down by school and thought I was in heaven. All those baking utilities made my heart beat like crazy, and of course I wanted to buy them all, but being a poor grad student and all... Well... I had to limit myself to the very few that I needed. I settled to buy a 7-inch circular cake pan, parchment baking paper, something I can't quite recall its name, and food coloring in rose. I decided to try out my food coloring and make some "strawberry" macarons.

The reason for it being "strawberry" is because I didn't have strawberry powder or anything of the sort. Thus, the macaron hats may look pink, but they don't taste like strawberry. Instead, I opted to use strawberry jam as filling. 

Now, I made three pans of macaron hats, and I placed the pans in the oven all at the same time.

Here's one pan, on which I used a silicone mat. 

They turned out very brown, giving off very little of the pink color. (I had placed foil over the hats for the last few minutes of baking time, but I guess I had done that too late.) 

Here's the second pan, also on a silicone mat. 

The colors turned out better on these, except the frills didn't come out quite satisfactory. 

Here's the third pan, and I used parchment paper on it, because I only had two silicone mats (duh). 

The colors came out very nice, but most of the hats turned out like so - all cracked and with no frills. 

I'm still trying to figure out what went wrong. Perhaps the browning was because I had put in three pans at once. (Or, maybe, if I had covered the pans with foil earlier, the color would've been saved.) Perhaps it's because I added 3 tablespoon of sugar to the meringue instead of 5 (to make them less sweet). Maybe it's the parchment paper. Or maybe it's because the batter had become too runny after squeezing out two pans. I don't know. When you fail with macarons, there are SO many aspects that could've gone wrong... I guess that's what makes macarons special. (And frustrating at times LOL) 

Although the outside became browned, the insides were still pink!

An assortment of macarons, from success to failure. But the failed ones still tasted great!

How cute are they!

This was the first time that I had ever used strawberry jam as filling, but it was actually pretty good!

I brought these macarons to the studio that I'm interning at, and they were very very popular :) 

Weeeeeeee~

With dalkicandy's wonderful assistance, 
we made our first batch of macarons in our new kitchen!

Black sesame macarons with chocolate ganache filling :D

 I didn't kill(?) the meringue enough, which made the batter a bit thick -
- resulting in bumpy macaron hats.

I think I'll get the batter right the next time...
It had been a while since I had made macarons,
so I kind of lost the "feel."

 But they tasted really good!!! 

Oh, and new discovery :

Macarons actually taste better when they are stored
in the fridge for one day in an air tight container. 

I want to try making pistachio or strawberry macarons next time :) 

for the longest time, my dad have searched endlessly for the mandoo (korean dumplings) from his childhood memories. similarly, my brother - marketman - have searched for the hwoe-neng-myun (korean cold & spicy noodles) that comes close to that of soo-ra-myun-ok, a restaurant in downtown daejeon, south korea. i guess it runs in the family, because i have been searching for some good macarons here in nyc.

many of you would probably be asking, "what are macarons? are you talking about macaroons? macaroni?"

my answer is, no, they are not macaroons or macaroni. before the story goes on, i would like to define macarons, with the help of our mighty wikipedia.

"Dating back to the 18th century, the macaron is a traditonal French pastry, made of egg whites, almond powder, icing sugar, and sugar... (They) are sandwich-like pastries made with two thin cookies and a cream or ganache between the cookies... At the Versailles Court in Paris, members of the Dalloyau family, whose decendents later founded the gastronomy house of the same name, served macarons to royalty in the then ruling House of Bourbon."

<from the movie "marie antoinette" - look at the mountain of macarons on the left!>

as most of my family and friends have noticed, i've been very persistent on the subject of macarons. however, my first experience with macarons was not very pleasant. during my trip to paris, my friends and i went to a famous patisserie (it's a shame that i've forgotten the name), where we bought a small bucket of macarons. at that time, we did not know what they were, but since that was pretty much all that the patisserie carried, we decided to give it a try. at first bite, we thought, "what is this?! it is unbelievable too sweet!" (and that's coming from me, who LOVES sweets).

nearly two years passed since that experience, and i stumbled upon a blog which posted a variety of baking recipes with step-by-step pictures. among the posts, there were several for macarons, and i was awed at how cute and pretty they looked. it made me want to try macarons again. i tasted a pistachio-flavored macaron at star bucks in korea, and i LOVED it. it was absolutely delicious. yes, a bit sweet, but delicious nonetheless. so that got me started on baking macarons myself. (i LOVE baking.)

FYI, macarons are extremely difficult to make. they are made with egg whites whipped up to meringue, and meringue cookies are very hard to handle properly. no matter how well you follow the recipe, it's all about technique and experience. it takes many trial and error to get the batter to the right consistency. i failed six straight times before i actually made a successful batch of macarons. (and i failed again the next time after that. sigh.)

anyway, since i can't really bake here in my dorm, i decided that i shall found a patisserie in nyc that carries macarons. however, only select shops carry them, since they are not the ordinary, everyday kind of cookies. i searched online and did find a couple of places. so, about a week and a half ago, i went to one of them and bought some macarons. wee!!

this is where i went:

MADELEINE PATISSERIE

128 W 23rd Street (between 6th and 7th Avenue)

Tel: 212-243-2757

i wish i took pictures of the store, but maybe next time.

aren't they cute?! i got four flavors: pistachio, strawberry, almond, and ginger chocolate.

i believe they were about $1.75 each.

i wanted to get chocolate, but they had run out of it... boo.

for size reference :) just the perfect size for a treat.

this is pistachio, and my favorite flavor for macarons. this was my favorite out of the four too.

this is ginger chocolate. err... not so great. i didn't like the ginger taste.

this is almond. the filling had a lemony taste to it, which i didn't like.

this is strawberry. this was good too.

my overall exeprience? well... it was okay. maybe 3.5/5 for ratings. i guess it's because the macarons i had at starbucks in korea were so good that these were just okay.

what i look for in macarons:

1) a crispy outer layer

2) chewy insides

with these macarons, 1) was so-so. they were kind of crispy, but they also felt a bit soggy. i'm wondering if freshness has anything to do with this, or if it's just the way their macarons are. for 2), the chewiness varied with each macaron. some were chewy enough, some weren't as much.

here's me with my favorite, pistachio macaron!!

my search for macarons shall go on...