French Macarons Redux

On the day of the Townwide Tag Sale, my really good friend and her crew mentioned that they were going to take another French macaron class with our favorite chef instructor at the local cooking school. I didn’t commit to going at the time, but then some expensive weekend plans fell through, and I felt like I was free to go. I was so glad that I did because I had a great bonding experience with my friends and I learned a lot.

What is a French Macaron?

A French macaron is a very delicate pastry that is usually composed of two meringue cookies filled with ganache, buttercream, or jam. The meringue cookies are usually made with almond flour to give them some more structure, and with some type of flavoring. Sometimes food coloring is added to make them visually stunning in addition to incredibly delicious.

What we learned this time is that most of the time macarons are gluten free. However, sometimes, some bakers will add a touch of wheat flour for extra stability. So if you are sensitive to gluten, you aren’t wrong to ask the baker if her/his macarons are actually gluten free. You might get a snide comment from the baker, but your health is worth it!

We also learned that it is super easy to substitute pistachio flour for almond flour. First, you would buy raw pistachios from the supermarket and toast those at home. It is best to toast those in a dry skillet on the stove top rather than in the oven because you have better control over the roasting process and you won’t forget about them. Next, you would want to clean out your coffee grinder or spice grinder by grinding either a piece of bread (toasted or untoasted – makes no difference) or a handful of raw rice. This will get in all the nooks and cranies of the grinder, because you never want to put that in the sink. Once your grinder is clean, work with two tablespoons of pistachios at a time with just a touch of almond flour and confectioners’ sugar to grind them finely. You don’t want to grind them into a paste! And you don’t want to use a food processor – even a mini-prep – to do this job because the volume is so small that the nuts will just bounce around.

Making the Macaron

This time, on the menu at the cooking school was a Chocolate Macaron with a Pistachio Buttercream filling and a Cinnamon Macaron with a Coffee Buttercream filling. (Spoiler alert: Yes, we did play around and put the Coffee Buttercream filling in the Chocolate Macaron and it was spectacular!) Since there were exactly ten of us, the chef instructor split us into two groups to make the macarons. Naturally, I was in the group to make the chocolate macaron.

Since the cooking school had taken care of the mise en place for us, we could dive right into making the meringue, which was a common French meringue that could also be used for lemon meringue pie, angel food cake, pavolva, meringue shells and so on. Since the meringue is the heart of the macaron, it absolutely needs to be done properly. It was basically all about patience and knowing what right looks like. You’re just about getting there when the mixture is not shiny and is becoming to hold a glob; however, it can break if it is overmixed.

There were a few tips that the chef instructor imparted that could help us turn out a perfect meringue. First, it is absolutely necessary to start with room temperature eggs because those beat up better than cold egg whites. That doesn’t necessarily mean leave the eggs out in the kitchen all night. What you could do is take the eggs out of the refrigerator, place them in a large stainless steel bowl, cover them with warm tap water for two hours or so, and that will bring them to room temperature. The chef instructor also said that older egg whites may whip up better, so you can separate the eggs a day or two before making the macarons, keep the egg whites in a covered container in the refrigerator, and then two hours before making the macarons, take the container out of the refrigerator, set it in a bowl of warm tap water, and let it warm up to room temperature.

Also, the chef instructor said that is doesn’t really matter when you add the cream of tartar to the egg whites; however, it does matter when you add the granulated sugar. If you put in the granulated sugar too early, it won’t allow the meringue to reach full volume, so it is best to whip the egg whites until foamy and add the granulated sugar gradually.

Before we started folding the dry ingredients into the meringue, the chef instructor warned us that making macarons is a science experiment that relies on a precise formula of almond flour, confectioners’ sugar, and egg whites. Therefore, you can’t add more ingredients to correct the batter if you deflate it too much.

Rather than just adding the dry ingredients to the meringue, the chef instructor had us sift the dry ingredients onto the meringue. Any of the nubs remaining in the sifter we rubbed through our hands and also added to the meringue. This was instead of sifting three times for the mise en place. To fold the dry ingredients into the batter, we stirred around the bowl and then through the center, very gently to avoid overmixing. The goal was to get a chunky looking batter when folding in the dry ingredients and then continue to deflate the batter until the batter ribbons off a spoon held above the bowl.

Once the batter reached the proper consistency, we loaded 16-inch piping bags with the batter and piped the macarons onto silpats and parchment paper with templates underneath. It is unnecessary to fit the piping bag with a tip because the macaron batter is too loose to hold a shape; therefore it isn’t worth the risk of wasting batter due to a lost tip. Macarons are piped by holding the piping bag at a 90-degree angle just slightly above the center of the template circle. Using one hand (NOT two hands) pipe until just inside the line of the template and then wipe away to move to the next template. On a silpat, the batter will spread slightly, but parchment paper will absorb the moisture so that the batter doesn’t spread.

Making the Buttercream

The pistachio buttercream that we were making was a variation on a basic Swiss buttercream recipe, which can also be used on cakes. We started by combining room temperature egg whites and granulated sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer, which was placed over a pot with an inch or two of water. Basically, we were creating an ad hoc double boiler. The goal was to heat the egg-sugar mixture to 142F; it will rise to 145F with carry over cooking once off the stove. We had to constantly whisk the mixture because it could crystallize if it was done improperly. Once the target temperature was achieved, the bowl was brought over the stand mixer and whisked until it cooled to room temperature. The key was that the bottom of the bowl should feel like skin temperature. At this point, the meringue should also resemble marshmallow fluff.

Once the mixture looks like marshmallow fluff and has cooled to the appropriate temperature, we added one-inch cubes of unsalted butter, one at a time, so that the butter would properly emulsify. I asked what would happen if I just added a whole stick of butter all at once, and the chef instructor responded that it wouldn’t emulsify properly. It would be like adding a whole cup of olive oil to a salad dressing all at once (which I do – but I have a Good Seasoning bottle.) Once the mixture is smooth and velvety, then we added the vanilla paste and chopped pistachios, and gave it a few more whirls.

Honestly, we all thought that our buttercream tasted too much like pure butter to want to use it, but our chef instructor thought it turned out well. However, the other group’s coffee buttercream was really good, even though it was basically the same recipe with the addition of some really strong espresso.

Baking the Macarons

Before baking, the macarons have to stand at room temperature for 30 to 45 minutes until a firm skin forms on them. The chef instructor did a touch test on the top of the macarons to determine whether they were ready for the oven. If her light touch left an impression, they had to continue drying. This is where kitchen variables will come into play. Whether your kitchen is warm or cold, dry or humid, that will all affect how quickly and thoroughly the macarons dry and how quickly they bake.

When the macarons were ready for the oven, the chef instructor put three pans in one oven and two pans into another oven. The cookies are ready when the “beret” on the cookie doesn’t wiggle. If the cookies are light colored and are at risk of browning, you can lightly lay a sheet of aluminum foil over top of the pan as they continue to bake. Silpats may take longer to bake because the parchment wicks away the moisture.

We had some serious issue with baking the cookies. Two sheets came out almost perfectly. Another two sheets needed to be steamed off their templates, which is relatively easy to do. Spread a damp kitchen towel on the counter and slide the silpat or parchment paper onto the damp paper towel. The heat of the cookies will create steam that helps release them from the template.

The last batch of cookies, which unfortunately was chocolate, posed an issue which our chef instructor had never seen before. They looked like they had risen in the oven then fallen. As a result some of the cookies had cracked and all of the cookies were super fragile. The chef instructor had to use an offset spatula to remove them from their silpat.

Assembling the Macaron

Assembling the macaron was easy and fun – especially because I knew that this was the last step to eating the macarons! The technique was the same as the last time: hold the bottom cookie in your hand flat side up, pipe a ring of buttercream around the edge of the cookie, gently place the top cookie onto the buttercream flat side down, and twist (not press!) to seat it. We had chopped pistachios to roll the chocolate macarons in, but those were so fragile that it was difficult to do.

The Verdict

Yet again the macarons were delicious - and even better than the ones that I buy at Paul in DC! The pistachio buttercream tasted less like pure butter when paired with the chocolate macaron, but I think it still could have used either more sugar or less butter. My favorite combination was definitely the chocolate macaron with the coffee buttercream filling.

It was definitely worth going to a second macaron class, even though I haven’t made macarons at home since the first class last November. One of the crew had a lot of interesting questions for the chef instructor because she had been making macarons at home for several months. So we definitely learned more tips and reasons why in this class than we did in November. And, even if I never bake these recipes at home, these cooking classes always make for a fun bonding experience with the crew.