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| Miracles do happen. Vanilla-apricot filled. |
Having had some reasonably good bakes thus far in Week 11, I was geared up for yet another foray into the world of macarons. I was determined to conquer them! Have you ever watched the Great British Bake Off? Contestants make gorgeous macarons left and right, all willy nilly. As a garnish! In a tent thrown up in a field on a country estate somewhere! In the height of an English summer! I know they are fussy, but surely in my enclosed kitchen during the bone dry humidity of a Minnesota winter/early spring, I should be able to have a modicum of success.
This time around, I was armed with some new equipment - brand new mega heavy duty baking sheets as recommended by Cooks Illustrated. Remember back in Week 7 when I tested out madeleines? Specifically, when my baking sheet warped in the high heat which twisted the silicone mold, causing some consternation? In mulling over the variables of macaron making and the possible contributors to the uneven baking, I wondered if the warping of the cookie sheets provided any sort of a clue. Surely these heavy duty baking sheets would lead to a more even conduction of heat which might help alleviate some of my macaron heartache. I stayed true to the scientific method and kept the cookie sheets as the only variable in this experimental iteration. So back to the French meringue method it was. Aged the egg whites for the 2 days, stuck with the high quality almond flour I'd been working with, piped onto parchment paper, and baked one sheet at a time. I started with the temp setting just like what I had previously worked out (preheat to 355, put cookie sheet in, and then decrease temp to minimize heating element kicking on). For what it's worth, I'd developed a finely choreographed routine, despite the subpar end results.
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| Peering into the depths of the oven |
Never before have I sat on the mat in front of the oven and peered so intently into the tiny, and somewhat dirty, window. I may have held my breath. In fact, I now know what Shakespeare meant by "with bated breath." Well, just try to imagine my elation when these tiny yellow shells rose up uniformly and developed those ruffly macaron feet. No leaning! No concave cavities! High fives all around for the macaron miracle!
Now that those shells were out of the way and cooling, it was time to make a filling. The macaron cookbook (yup, you read that right) had a vanilla apricot filling made from dried apricots and, as luck would have it, I had a whole pile of beautiful dried apricots in the cupboard. The filling was quite good with the lightly lemony shells, and the finished macarons were just about as uniform and as pretty as I could have hoped for.
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| Alternate view |
Just for fun, let's take a moment to revisit the macaron shell graveyards of some prior failed attempts:
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| March 2016 |
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| April 2016 |
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| March 2017 |
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