Paulchens FoodBlog?!

Vanilla Macarons with Mousse di Ricotta e Vino Santo

15 January 2010 10 Comments

Jamie bribed me out of my comfort zone again.

Recently I made lovely mousses for my family visit and therefore had left over egg whites. I had no clue what to do with them.

Anne suggested Meringue, so I made a Meringue Coffee Cake with some of the egg whites, leaving me still with about the half of used ones.

Jamie then suggested to try my hand on Macarons directing me to MacTweets a wonderful blog run by her and Deeba. It is a great ressouce for erveryone who wants to try his/her skills on Macarons!

My first thought was: NO WAY!

It seemed so much work and so complicated and I was sure I’d fail anyway… but I was curious so I read my way through all the information on this site. First I began with Jamie’s guide, copied and printed the Macaron template, read through Meeta’s wonderful article full of useful hints and tips and finnally ended up with “Demystifiying Macarons” by Helen Dujardin.

While doing all this I was still arguing with myself to just dump those egg whites rather than risk a failure. The other part of me was arguing that IF it was a failure I would dump it too so I could easily give it a try…

To cut a long story short: As you can see by the pictures here, the second voice won and I braved my way through making macarons.

I used the basic recipe given in Helen’s guide and Jamie’s instructions.

I flavoured my macs with a few drops home made vanilla syrup and colored them with curcuma - hence the yellow color.

Aftermath:

As though you can’t see it too well (fortunately for me *hehe*) from the pics I shot and chose to show you, there is lots and lots of space for improvement…

I think the dough might have needed a few more folds.
My almonds were not ground enough hence the surface is not as smooth and shiny… but I liked the little almond bits while I was eating them
I think I should sift the sugar and almonds better or more often. I had a few lumps in the dough too.
While piping the macs I discovered that I didn’t own a tip that was wide enough to pipe them comfortably. *makes note to self* need to buy a tip that is wide enough.

I did not bother with making a filling on my own this time, was too exhausted by the Mac-Experience *lol*

I thought this wonderful Mousse di Ricotta e Vino Santo from La Fattoria Vialla must be a perfect companion for my first macs and so it was!

So if you want to see lots and lots of other and way better Macs than my humble versions go and visit MacTweets!

You will see I am not kidding ;o)

Thanks Jamie for making me try these!

10 Comments »

deeba said:

Oh the persuasive powers of Jamie…take a look at your gorgeous macs! WOOT! I’m glad she talked you into joining us at MacTweets. Brilliant stuff! Love the vibrant macs you made! Thank You!!

# 15 January 2010 at 4:14 PM

Rosa said:

Those macarons are perfect! i love the flavors you chose!

Cheers,

Rosa

# 15 January 2010 at 6:10 PM

Jamie said:

Yay yay yay for you and look at how fabulous those macs are! I’m a real arm twister, I am, but I always try and please! I love the flavors and they are truly perfect, beautiful macs! So happy you decided to join us and…until next month :-)

# 16 January 2010 at 1:28 PM

johanna said:

ich kann echt nicht glauben, dass ich mich noch immer nicht ueber macarons druebergetraut habe… das sollte mein neujahrsvorsatz fuer 2010 sein! liebe gruesse

# 16 January 2010 at 2:42 PM

Lynn said:

Oh, my gosh! First time out and your macarons are picture perfect. Well done!

# 16 January 2010 at 4:21 PM

astrid (author) said:

Thank you all.
Most of all thanks to Jamie for being so convincing. Love to try new things, sometimes I just need the right push… ;o)

# 17 January 2010 at 6:07 PM

Natashya said:

Wonderful! I can’t wait to try making macarons too. I am so jealous of the delicious and artistic confections you guys are making.

# 17 January 2010 at 8:52 PM

Simone (junglefrog) said:

That is a really impressive and fabulous result for your first mac’s!! They are gorgeous! I can still remember (vividly) my first mac attempt and believe me they were nowhere near as pretty as yours!

# 18 January 2010 at 3:09 PM

Lien said:

I have to give this a go once. They look perfect, great color!! This mousse just makes my mouth water and wakes up my greed. :)

# 19 January 2010 at 1:05 PM

Paulchens FoodBlog?! » Blog Archive » MAC ATTACK #25 – Chestnut & Pistachio Macarons said:

[...] of 10:3 against me I had not many success stories to post either. So far I successfully made Vanilla Macarons and Rose Macarons and these two Holiday flavored Macarons you see [...]

# 29 December 2011 at 7:40 PM