Easy Macaron Recipe

For $2 a shot, you would think that Macaron's are almost impossible to make.  I used to, until the lady of the house wanted to give it a go.  Turns out that they are dead easy to make as long as you take a little time and pay a little care and attention to the process.  We followed this recipe here and it was the best recipe slash teaching aide I have ever seen

Ingredients - For plain macaron

4 large egg whites - 140g
1/3 cup caster sugar - 70g
1 1/2 cups icing sugar - 230g
1 cup almond meal - 120g
2g salt
gel food colouring - optional
freeze dried raspberry powder - about 3 heaped teaspoons - optional

Method

Preheat the oven to 150 degC.

Place the egg whites and caster sugar in a bowl and mix with an electric mixer for 8-10 minutes.

Add gel food colouring and continue to mix for 30 seconds.  The mixture should look stiff and dry.

Sift the almond meal and icing sugar and salt twice, discarding any almond lumps that are too big to pass through the sieve.  Fold into the egg white mixture.  It should take roughly 50 folds until the mixture is smooth and a very viscous liquid, not runny.  Over mix and the macarons will be flat , have no foot and not be smooth on top.

Pipe onto trays lined with baking paper, then rap the trays on the bench firmly to prevent cracking. 

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.  Check to see if one comes off the tray cleanly, if not bake a few minutes more. 

Cool before filling with filling of your choice; chocolate ganache, jam etc.