French Macarons

Step 1

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, making sure your oven rack is in the middle.

Step 2

Prepare a pastry bag with a medium sized tip. My favourite method to do this is to put the pastry bag with the tip into a large cup, folding the edges of the bag over the edges of the cup to allow for easy filling with the macaron batter.

Step 3

Put your slipmat or parchment on a baking sheet.

Step 4

Set up your standing mixer with a whisk attachment, or prepare a large bowl and hand held mixer. Make sure your bowl is clean and dry, with no remnants of oil in it from previous use.

Step 5

Measure almond flour and powdered sugar. After measuring sift together and set aside.

Step 6

Measure egg whites, making sure to get no yolk in the whites

Step 7

Measure sugar

Step 8

Add egg whites, sugar, and salt into the bowl of your standing mixer. If using vanilla bean instead of extract, add now as well

Step 9

Turn on medium to medium high speed and whip about 5-7 minutes, until stiff peaks form and the egg whites start to clump in/around the middle to the beater.

Step 10

Once they start to clump, stop mixing and add vanilla extract and optional food colors

Step 11

Beat again until everything is combined. Try not to beat too much so that they start to break or get grainy.

Step 12

Remove bowl from mixer and add the sifted almond flour/powdered sugar mix

Step 13

Macaronge the batter with either a flexible spatula or large spoon. You’ll want to mix until the powdered sugar mixture is fully incorporated into the egg whites, so take extra care to scrape the bottom of the bowl. Some say it takes about 50 strokes and will look like honey or lava when finished. It should not be too thin or watery, that means you’ve overmixed it.

Step 14

Fill your prepared pastry bag with macaron batter and when you’re ready to start piping the macarons, push the batter all the way down to the tip and twist the top to prevent the batter from spilling out the top.

Step 15

Start piping your macarons about 1.5 inches in diameter. If you’ve have pre-drawn circles, fill until almost to the edges as they will spread a bit.

Step 16

Once you've filled your tray, tap it hard on the counter to bring up any air bubbles. Turn 180 degrees and tap again. Then pop any air bubbles with a toothpick or scribe.

Step 17

Put in the oven and turn the temperate down to 300 ℉. Bake 17-19 minutes until you can lift the macaron without it sticking or the start to brown around the edges and top.

Step 18

Remove from oven and let rest until fully cooled.

Step 19

Once cooled, match the macaron shells my size and fill with filling of choice. You can eat right away, or let mature in the fridge a few days until they get to the desired consistency.