French Macaroons

Today is our brother's birthday, and we decided to make him some French Macaroons. It might be a tradition soon to make them on his birthday. First time we tried it, it didn't really work out, so here we are, a year later, trying again. They did not turn out as they do on pictures online, but it might be that we just need a bit more practice.

The recipe is very simple. We took it from Martha Steward's website and you'll need

1 cup confectioners' sugar

3/4 cup almond flour

2 large egg whites, room temperature

pinch of cream of tartar

1/4 cup superfine sugar

We didn't have almond flour, so we just took sliced almonds and coffee mill and made our own :)

At the beginning we would suggest to start whisking whites at medium speed, because that takes some time, and if you have Kitchen Aid standing mixer it would be ideal to just let it mix while you are mixing almond flour and confectioners' sugar.

When egg whites become foamy add cream of tartar and whisk until soft peaks start forming. Reduce speed to low, add  superfine sugar (we used powdered sugar) and increase speed to high and whisk until stiff peaks form.

Sift mixture of almond flour and sugar over egg whites and fold it in until the mixture is smooth and shiny.

Put batter to a pastry bag with 1/2 inch plain round tip, but if you don't have a pastry bag, you can use Ziploc bag, like we did and cut off one corner after you filled it. To make it easier put Ziploc bag on a mug or glass that is big enough (we took that idea from a Norwegian blog A bit of everything). We tried to make it light green color, but because of self-made almond flour that didn't exactly work out.

Pipe about 3/4 inch rounds about 1 inch apart from each other and bring the tip to the side of the circle instead of making a peak at the top. Ours turned out to be bigger once they settled in.

Let them sit for 15 minutes and then bake them for 8-10 minutes turning them half through way.

You may choose from many different fillings, but we went with chocolate ganache from Martha Steward's website.

You'll need 1/2 cup heavy cream

3 1/2 ounce dark chocolate, finely chopped

1 tablespoon of unsalted butter

Bring heavy cream to boil over medium-high heat, then pour cream over chocolate and let it stand for 2 minutes. Add butter then whisk mixture to until smooth. Let it cool and sandwich 2 same size macaroons with 1 teaspoon of filling.

Hope you like them as much as we do! Enjoy!

*Tip: You can make any color you'd like by adding food coloring to it. Making fruity filling will give it a bit of interesting and refreshing taste.