Merry Macarons

Photo Credit: Truc over at Treats http://treats-sf.blogspot.com/2011/08/blackberry-and-strawberry-macarons.html

Ok so... I'm sort of cheating on this one. I haven't actually made these YET (key word there). But, I promise you, I'm planning on making these in the near future- sometime closer to Christmas so that they don't go all stale and nasty before I give them to people as gifts. I thought I'd post the recipe on here earlier so that you guys can make these for your friends and family for Christmastime as well! So at least my cheating is all in the name of time management, right?

MERRY MACARONS (recipe adapted from Sorted Food). makes about 48 small macarons
-3 egg whites

-1/3 cup (75 g) superfine sugar

-1/2 cup (125 g) ground almonds


-3/4 cup (175 g) icing sugar

-Flavorings (I recommend using extracts to get the best flavor such as Raspberry extract, lemon extract, vanilla extract, etc.)

-Food coloring

-Fillings of choice (ex: raspberry jam, lemon curd, nutella)

HOW-TO
Preheat oven to 320 F
1. Whisk the egg whites in a bowl until thick and glossy

2. Add the superfine sugar and whisk until stiff peaks form

3. Drop the almonds and icing sugar into the mixture and carefully fold in, retaining as much air as possible.

4. Divide the mixture equally between however many types of flavors you want in seperate bowls. I'm planning on doing three. You can choose your flavor/color combos, but for the sake of instructions, let's use what I plan on doing.)

5. Into one bowl, fold in raspberry flavor and pink food coloring. In another bowl add lemon flavor and yellow food coloring. In the last bowl, add vanilla flavoring and blue food coloring.

6. Spoon each mixture into seperate piping bags

7. Line a baking tray with parchment paper and pipe small rounds (about 3 cm) onto the tray, leaving a small gap in between each one

8. Put the tray aside to rest for about 15 minutes so that a slight skin forms on the rounds

9. Pick the tray up and drop it on aflat surface from a small height. This forms the wafery layer under the cookie.

10. Bake for about 15 minutes, then remove and allow to chill at room temperature until they are completely cooled.

11. Make a sandwich with 2 macaron rounds and the filling of choice. For example, take two vanilla rounds and spread some nutella on the flat side of one round and top it off with the other round.

12. Eat/gift within the next 28 hours or some, when they are still fresh!