that you weren’t supposed to bake something today?
I have that feeling right now.
And I’m in the middle of a batch (er, second) of macarons.
I LOVE these cookies. They are little pieces of heaven. But they are hell to make.
First, I couldn’t decide which flavour. I opted for mint, dug out my peppermint… But the recipe called for dry mint leaves. Instead, I thought “Hey, I’ll just sub in the mint for the vanilla when i make the meringue”. Well, I forgot. So I threw it in on top of the already glossy, stiff eggs and gave it a whirl. The eggs turned into a minty goop and no amount of beating could recover them.
*sigh*
That also meant I was out of eggs… or at least 1 short. Off to the grocery store in the pouring rain and very cold.
Couldn’t find dried mint leaves… got eggs and discovered unsalted butter on sale 😀 whoo hooo!
So, back to decision time. What flavour. I decided on chocolate, which in itself is a scary thing, since the only other batch of these things that failed on me was this chocolate recipe. The recipe book I’m using offers modifications to the recipe depending on what flavour you choose. The chocolate requires 25g of dutch processed cocoa and reduces the powdered sugar and almond flour to 50g each. Last time that didn’t work, so this time i added only 15g of cocoa to the sifted almond/sugar mix and *crosses fingers* I’m waiting on the first batch right now…
*******************TIME LAPSE*******************
Success!
Well, mostly. Recipe says 18 mins. Much too long. 14 mins is more like it.
But thats ok, my batter is never smooth at the beginning anyways, so I burned the wrinkly ones.
The rest look great! And I made mini ones 😀
The icing was yet another task. I’ve made it before no problem, but getting that syrup to the right temp was killing me tonight. I have a candy thermometer, but this time it crystallized and I … well, I have no excuse. Not quite sure what went sideways…  So onto round 2.
Round 2 icing failed as well. Ugh. It clumped and just blah.
Round 3 however, I got the bowl warmed, I made the egg warm before cracking it, I put a warm wet cloth under the bowl… It worked, finally, and I added the mint to it.
Gee, I’ve wasted lots of eggs tonight 😦
And I also have 6 yolks just waiting for a mission.
Ok, so wow that took way longer than necessary. but THEY’RE SO CUTE!!!
The mini ones are adorable.
They’re not as satisfying to eat as the big ones though, because you don’t get that interesting texture when you bite into the middle of it…
I’ll update this later with the recipe… Going to bed now.
Sweet N' Tiny 