Swiss Meringue Macarons

Welcome back everyone!

I'm so excited!! This will be the first recipe in this blog, and I wish you enjoy it as much as I do.

First, a throwback on the story of how do I get to this recipe. Few years ago I decided that the next step as a home baker was trying macarons. So I search for different French macarons recipes cause they seem the easiest (haha). At first I though everything was fine I follow the steps. You know: sieving dry ingredients like 4 times, made merengue until stiff peaks, macaronage until lava stage, used aged egg whites, etc.

Then baking time came and everything that could go wrong did... 1. No foot, 2. Cracked, 3. Unbaked and on and on. I was so frustrated. I remember trying a few more times with different recipes and keep failing every time in so many distinct ways, so I decided to give up. First because I felt defeated and second almond flour is so expensive that I felt it was so much unnecessary waste. For years I forget about macarons, and it was okay.

Until a few months ago, a co-worker was having her birthday party and asked if I made macarons. OMG I was so ashamed to say that I didn't cause I never get them right. That weekend I decided to buy everything and tried them all over again but changing the method so I tried the Italian method. So after reading few recipes I find one that felt right. It was good, but one big problem was that I didn't had my stand mixer in consequence merengue took forever and never reached the stiff peaks stage. Also the few times I tried every time my syrup crystallize little balls into the merengue. First batch cracked all over again so someone told me to reduce temperature, I did and I have to say... LIFE CHANGING and so important! Believe me, if your oven is to hot, THEY WILL CRACK! The second batch was good, not perfect but good. This made me feel confident and even thought that I find THE recipe. But when I tried the recipe few more times well... haha they weren't that good, no cracking but no footage or no correct textures. So I decided to look for the middle method. You know it's: French merengue which is easy, Italian merengue which you should be more skilled and then Swiss merengue which is between both. They aren't a lot of recipes out there for this type of macaron but the one I found it's the ONE working for me every time!

What I love about this method it's that you don't have to aged egg whites or use syrup. It's so easy to do but please follow these tips to reduce risks factors:

• As already said, low temperature is KEY. What I do it's that I preheat my oven at 190 °C and then when I'm ready to cook I reduce it to 140 °C.

• Skining it's super important, more if you live in a humid place like me. Your skin should be kind of hard. I recommend placing them in the oven and heat it on low for 2-3 min, leave them for 30 min to a 1 hour. Don't worry if it takes more time. I had waited for skin process up to 3 hours.

• Weight all your ingredients, don't use cups. Even though I love the US Customary using a scale, gives you more precision and less chances to go wrong. I highly recommend that before you start be ready with the measure ingredients.

• Macaronage it's crucial so do it with patience and control. If it's your first time or don't have a lot of experience with macarons, please take your time cause over mixing can leave you with a too liquid batter and under will give you a thick cookie.

• It's not crucial, but I strongly recommend using a thermometer for the swiss merengue.

• Egg whites don't need to be age, but they do need to be at room temperature.

• Maintain the piping bag in a 90 degree, so you avoid having a foot only on one side, unequal foots almost all the time are because poor piping.

Before going right into the recipe I recommend to read several times this recipe and try it a few times until you found what works for you. Please share with me what you think can change and your ideas I will loved to hear them!

Don't worry if you don't nail the first time, believe me when I say you will get there!!!

Swiss Merengue Method Macarons Recipe:

Ingredients:

Yields for 15 medium macarons

• 155 gr almond flour

• 155 gr icing sugar

• Egg whites at room temperature divided: 65 gr and 52 gr

• 155 gr caster sugar

• Food gel colorant

• Filling: buttercream, ganache, lemon curd, pastry cream, etc.

Instructions:

1. Prepare your silicon mat or parchment paper to fit a baking tray. If you don't own a mat, you can draw the 4 cm circles on the reverse of the parchment paper.

2. Combine almond flour and icing sugar in a food processor and pulse until a fine consistency. It's important you pulse in intervals if not you will end with marzipan.

3. Sift almond and icing sugar 2 to 3 times to remove chunky bits

4. Add the colorant to the 65 gr of egg whites just until reaching the color you want. Add it to the almond/icing sugar mixture to get a paste until combined.

5. Whisk the sugar and egg whites in the bowl until the sugar has dissolved but be careful to don't let your mixture get too hot. If you got a thermometer, keep the mixture under 50 °C.

6. When sugar dissolved, remove the bowl and using a stand whisk beat at high speed until stiff peaks. It will take around 5-8 minutes, you should see a glossy, stiff and with a riffle effect merengue. Also, it's important that the base of the bowl is cool to touch.

7. Fold a third of the merengue into the almond paste, this step is call macorange. Start by gently cutting and folding with a spatula. Do this 2 more times with the remaining merengue. Be careful not to over fold. Mixture will be ready when the batter falls from the spatula into ribbons kind like lava. If the edges of the ribbon dissolved back in the batter in 10 seconds, the batter is ready.

8. Fill a piping bag with a round tip and pipe into the circles. Don't fill the circles all the way, you want to leave space between macarons.

9. Tap the tray on a flat surface to remove air bubbles. Leave the macarons until a slightly hard skin form. It could take 30 min and in a humid day up to 3 hours.

10. Preheat the oven to 190 °C, then reduce to 140°C. when ready to bake. Bake for 15 minutes. You know they are ready when they don't move on the parchment paper if you press the shell. Don't open the oven before the 15 min or they will deflated.

11. Let them cool before you remove them from the parchment paper.

12. Macarons needs to rest for 24 hours before eating in an airtight container. You can fill them and keep them in the fridge or rest the shells in the fridge and then fill them before serving.

Notes:

• Here's the link for a basic circle template you can use if don't own a mat. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/13/a5/93/13a593b953bfab7e4ff988a65d75bf0e.jpg

• You can do them in advanced and freeze them. Be sure to keep them in a aright container so they don't freeze burn. When ready to use them thawed them in the fridge a few hours before assembling.

• If you don't have a round tip, don't worry. Only cut the tip of the piping bag.

Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do! I'm looking forward to reading your comments.

With love,

Montserrat Castillo.