My first adventure into Macaron land

After seeing many people posting pictures of their beautiful macarons, and after having almond meal sitting in my pantry for what seemed like forever, I finally decided to try one of the many recipes I had saved over the past few months.

I think I really hit the jackpot with this recipe, as the macarons turned out pretty well for a first try.

I would say that I would change absolutely nothing in the recipe, I followed it pretty much to the letter, and voila!! Success!!!

I will certainly be trying more of Ms Taste's macaron recipes in the future.

Here is the recipe.

Just a few notes on my experience with this recipe.

1. I didn't age my egg whites for as long as recommended. I put mine in my pantry on Sunday night and used them on Wednesday afternoon. The amount of time seemed to do the trick. Some other recipes suggest aging for one night only, however I held off as long as I could ;)
2. My mix did not fall in ribbons. I mixed it for the recommended 30-40 turns, and didn't want to go further as I didn't want to over mix, however my mix was quite firm.
3. I ended up leaving them to crust for around 40-45 minutes, this is because I just couldn't get back to them whilst feeding the baby :)
4. My macarons did not spread at all, so in expectation of them spreading I piped them quite small, as a result, one full macaron easily fits whole in your mouth, and melts away before you've had a chance to realise what is happening. IT'S DANGEROUS!!!! They can all dissapear before you know it ;) Pipe them a little bigger if your mix turns out to be firm ;)
5. I used a different filling, recipe below.

White Chocolate Almond Ganache
40gms Pura Thick Cream (I use Pura because they use vegetable gums as a thickener instead of gelatine)
110gms Lindt Swiss Gold White with Almonds

1. Chop the chocolate finely. Make sure you do this or else the ganache won't go through your piping bag, the chocolate has whole almonds in it, you want to make sure that those are chopped well.
2. Heat up your cream in a small bowl in the microwave for about 25 seconds. I recommend the microwave because the amount is so small.
3. Add chopped chocolate to the hot cream and mix to form a thick paste, if it's runny, allow it to cool completely before placing it in a piping bag with a large round tip (I used Wilton No. 12)
4. Pipe a little of the ganache onto one macaron piece, and stick it together with another.
5. Try not to eat them all in one sitting ;)