Macaroons recipe.

Preperation time: 2 hrs.

Level: Difficult

Ingredients:

• 160 g almond flour (ground almonds)
• 160 g icing Sugar (confectioner’s sugar)
• 140 g egg white
• 180 g caster sugar
• 2 tsp any natural extract (I used Rose)
• Food colour in powder form (Pink)

 Filling options:

• Nutella
• Choice of your Jam
• Philadelphia cheese

Preparation:

• Get the eggs to room Temprature. Seperate the egg whites. Start whipping the egg whites. Make sure your Blender is held upright. If the motion of whipping goes side ways that will incorporate air which can spoil the texture of your Macaroons.
• Start with low speed. Once the egg white change their texture from liquid to froth its time to add your first part of ingredient.
• Gradually start adding 90g of castor sugar to the froth. Continue beating at the same speed. Around 5 minutes later you will notice a change in the texture. Once the peaks start forming this is an indication for you to proceed to the next step.
• Continue by following the same process as above. Start adding additional 90 g of castor sugar gradually. So that makes a total of 180 g of castor sugar. The sugar has to dissolve completely. Continue beating until you get stiff peaks.
• Now take 160 g of ground Almond and 160 g of icing sugar. So the net amount adds up to 320g.
• Add a little food colour the flour at this stage. Add a few drops of essence at the same time. Tip the meringue (egg Mix) onto the almond mixture and gently fold together.
• Start mixing slowly with cut fold and scratch method. Keep scratching the surface while accelerating. Make sure there is no liquid formation. Incase you see any such change in your meringue then stop immediately. Humidity tends to break the macaroon batter which is why the meringue starts loosing its texture. Shift the batter to a/c room preferably to stop it from breaking up.
• This process will take a while (Approximate 30­-35 strokes) .Once the meringue is ready it should fall in a thick ribbon form from the spatula.
• Line the tray with a baking sheet. Spoon a small amount of batter into an icing bag and pipe a test disk of batter, about 1 1/2 inches in diameter, onto prepared baking sheet. If the disk of batter holds a peak instead of flattening immediately, gently fold the batter a few more times and retest.
• Mix it enough to flatten immediately into an even disk, spoon into an icing bag fitted with a plain round nozzle. Pipe the batter onto the baking sheet in rounds, leaving space between the disks. Let the piped cookies stand out at room temperature until they form a hard skin on top. Its takes about 30 minutes.
• Test it before putting it in the oven. If the disk is set it won’t break/stick even after you touch it.
• Preheat oven to 285 degrees F (140 degrees C). Bake cookies until set but not browned, about 10 to 15 minutes.
• Let cookies cool completely before filling. Place the mix into a clean piping bag with a small nozzle and pipe around the edge of half the macaroon shell and sandwich with another macaroon shell.
• Add the filling of your choice. Some easy options would be Nutella or fill the centre with choice of your jam. I used Philadelphia cheese and rose essence for my macaroon filling.

Hope you all will enjoy baking this Pastry.