Coffee, Tea or Milk?

with Espresso Ganache

with Matcha Green Tea Ganache

with homemade Dulce de Leche

Macaron 101

I have this obsession with French macarons (not to be mistaken for coconut macaroons).  Since I moved to Kauai, I can never have them unless I take the next 30-minute flight to Honolulu.  Insane.  Determined as I always am, I started cracking eggs for my first attempt to make French macarons.  I have to admit, that was also the first time I developed my love-hate relationship with the garbage disposal.  As much as it frustrates angers me to use it, on a bad batch, I’d succumbed to this cookie monster.  Maybe flying to Honolulu doesn’t sound insane after all.

I’m self-taught watching random demos of Pastry Chefs on YouTube--in French, nonetheless.  I've also read a lot of food blogs.  I’m convinced that if you’re a chef, you might as well be a physicist and a chemist.  Have you watched that Alton Brown on Food Network?  Genius.  Food is all science.  The kitchen is your lab.  I would never thought I’d say this but thank you for chemistry, Cream of Tartar became my reliable, stable companion--literally.  After feeding the garbage disposal twice in two hours one rainy morning, I just had to Google how to stabilize my flat egg whites.  I can’t stop making macarons just because it’s raining outside.  I can practically watch whales breaching from the window, for goodness sake.  I’m surrounded by water!  Magically, potassium bitartrate gave my egg whites the oomph.  I’ve actually used Cream of Tartar before, no brainer.  What I don’t understand is why all these macaron recipes call for aging egg whites (eeww) for at least 24 hours to dehydrate when a pinch of science potion can do an adequate job.  Not only that, the recipes require waiting for another half an hour to crust the piped meringue circles before shoving them into the oven.  Well, I just skipped all that and my meringue has now uber tolerance to heat allowing it to pie (the appearance of the little feet) nicely.  I’ve hit the Au (Gold), baby.

These dainty cookies are actually a damn plague to make.  These are a far cry from the 3-step mix, pour and bake goodies from the baking aisle of your grocery store.  It’s more of mastering the technique rather than perfecting the recipe.  You have to patiently follow every step, i.e. boil until temperature reaches 242F, whip for approximately 10 minutes until cool, fold until the meringue batter flows like a “lava”.  No short cuts or you’d have to deal with the garbage disposal again.  When you’re all stressed out trying to make it right, you don’t realize you start talking to yourself out loud (not always a good sign).  

I could’ve told myself that I’ve tried and walked away.  But, I got pretty riled up.  The heck.  And then, I was faced to choose which technique to use -- the French meringue or the Italian (Josh calls it Swiss) meringue.  In layman’s term, with the French meringue, you whip the egg whites with granulated sugar.  With the Italian meringue, you whip the egg whites with hot sugar syrup.  After deciding I’ve sacrificed enough eggs, I favored the latter.  Although the sight of the candy thermometer on the boiling sugar syrup was initially intimidating  cold-sweat-scary, the cooked sugar made the meringue more forgiving and more consistent (by far).

So, that was the part of trying to create the perfect meringue.  Then, there was the other part of piping it in identical circles.  You can’t sandwich a round cookie with a Mickey Mouse cookie.  How dare you?  One word: Practice.  You squeeze... then flick.   

Now, try to bake these bad boys perfectly.  From my experience, if the oven temperature is too low, you'll end up with flat, hollow cookies.  The heat actually raises up the "dome" of the cookie; hence, creating the little feet.  And without the little feet, you can't really call it a macaron.  If the oven temperature is too high, it reacts (and looks) like a volcano.  So, if your oven generates heat from the bottom like mine, I highly recommend that you use double cookie sheets to insulate the heat better. 

Finally, the part of picking the filling to sandwich the meringue cookies together.  I’ve been browsing through Josh’s hand-me-down pastry books (Did I ever mention that Macaron books are published in French?  I've found one in English and it was written by a Japanese pastry chef.  Go figure.) and boy, was I overwhelmed.    Pastry cream, chantilly cream, bavarian cream, buttercream, ganache, curd, etc.  Listen to this: a creme anglaise transforms into a pastry cream when you add cornstarch which becomes a bavarian cream when you add whipped cream.  Whatever filling you choose, it has to hold itself well -- it can't be runny.  Think of an Oreo cookie.  


Does it ever end?  Now, you see where the obsession is coming from.    

Check out my website: www.WoodenSpoonHawaii.com