Macarons - almond cookies (Les macarons)

Macarons - almond cookies (Les macarons)

Category: Confectionery

Ingredients
powdered sugar	125 g
almond flour (home-milled)	125 g
egg whites (aged)	90 g
sugar	112 g
water	37 g

Cooking method

• 1. Separate the whites from the yolks and leave to "age" at room temperature for 24 hours.
• 2. Mix the icing sugar with almond flour and sift through a fine sieve.
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• 3. Divide the proteins into 2 parts (45 g each). Mix one part of the proteins with a mixture of powdered sugar and almonds. Grind the mixture very thoroughly until thick sour cream (5-10 minutes).
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• 4. Beat the other half of the whites into a foam. Before whipping, let the syrup boil from the specified amount of sugar and water until a soft ball (120-122 degrees).
• 5. Pour the syrup into the whipped egg whites in a thin stream, without stopping whipping, and continue the process until the resulting mass has cooled (35 degrees).
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• 6. Put the finished meringue into the almond mass in a circular motion (roll down). Introduce in parts, trying not to spoil the meringue structure.
• 7. Transfer the prepared mass from the pastry bag onto a baking sheet covered with baking paper at a distance of 3 cm from each other and let stand for 30 minutes to form a glossy crust.
• 8. Bake in an oven preheated to 160-170 degrees for 12-14 minutes.
• During baking, open the oven door twice for a few seconds (at the sixth and ninth minute).
• 9. Filling - in this case I used a standard custard with the addition of caramel topping (see photo).
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• Cooking almond flour.
• Peel the almonds by blanching them for 5-7 minutes in boiling water (after blanching, put them in very cold water). Dry the peeled nuts in the oven (do not fry!). Grind in a processor in small portions on the "pulse" mode. Dry and grind a little in a coffee grinder on the "pulse" mode - literally 2-3 presses, otherwise oil will start to stand out. Dry again and use.

Note

These tender, slightly damp cookies inside appeared in our coffee shops about a year ago and sunk into my soul. Having set out to include them in my regular assortment of homemade baked goods, I shoveled a bunch of magazines and surfed the Internet for a long time. I tried many recipes. In some cases, it turned out to be something indigestible, in others it was just an almond meringue.
This recipe (thanks to mama-fenix from LJ) is almost authentic in taste to pastries from a good pastry shop.
It is impossible to buy almond flour from us, so I make it at home. I suffered with mastering the process, but I found a way to get a sufficiently fine grind, which gives a good result when baking

The cooking process is quite laborious, but the reward is endless gratitude from home.

Note to clause 2.
Sift exactly the combined ingredients. I came to this empirically. Powdered sugar absorbs the oil released during the grinding of nuts and the mass becomes more "free-flowing". With this approach, it is possible to almost completely avoid waste, which is inevitable if you sift the almonds separately.

Duc and how to turn almonds into flour?

[sweetka]

sweetka, good evening! : hi: Grinding almonds into powder with household appliances is hardly a feasible task. But it is quite possible to grind to bake good quality Les macarons. There are a few tricks:

1. Good drying between grinds.
2. Grinding in the "pulse" mode in small portions.

Now the process itself:
a) after peeling, put the nuts on a pan in one layer. We heat the oven to 40-50 degrees, turn it off and put the nuts to dry. (until the oven cools down completely). Repeat the procedure several times.
b) put nuts in small portions (2 tbsp. l.) into a harvester or chopper and grind them into crumbs on the "pulse" mode. You cannot add all the nuts and grind them at high speed, since oil begins to stand out, and this is unacceptable in our case.
c) we repeat the drying procedure again.
d) now we take a coffee grinder, fall asleep in 1 tbsp. l. nut crumb and in the "pulse" mode we do 4-5 clicks. So we grind the entire volume.
e) dry again as described above.
f) Now we do the second grind in the coffee grinder. This time, add 1 teaspoon each, process the entire volume and dry again in the same way.
The resulting grits are ready for use.

The process, of course, is terribly dreary. But I have these cookies, one of the "branded"
chips. I have adapted to do it for future use (0.5 kg of nuts at a time). I usually bake a double portion with different fillings and fillings.

By the way - I am going to bake in the near future with two new versions of nanachines. I'll post a photo and a recipe.

Actually, a recipe from the series "the devil is not so terrible as his rice". There is a desire, everything will work out.
I tried to answer in detail. If I missed something and questions appear, I will answer with pleasure. Good luck!

hmmm ... a tablespoon a pound - not fast ... but the main principle is clear - good drying!

[sweetka]

sweetka, Almond flour appeared at Cradle's warehouse.

ooooooooooo, we urgently need to run to the cradle!

The author, for your patience, as they say, respect and respect! I probably won't dare. Unless I buy almond flour.

[sweetka]

sweetka, Hello! Sorry for the insolence, but I read here that someone has almond flour in the warehouse !!! Is it an online store or your personal "connections"? Can you share some information?

Well, I would be very, very grateful!

[Pogremuska]

Pogremuska, thank you for the kind words,

[Twist]

Twist, this warehouse is on our website. Take a look HERE

[Vitalinka]

Vitalinka, thanks a lot for the tip!

[Vitalinka]

Vitalinka, thank you very much!

[Twist]

Twist, but not at all. Happy shopping and more tasty treats!

As I promised, I'm posting two toppings for Les macarons and a photo.

1. Apricot

Soak 5-6 pcs. dried apricots in cognac (better at night in the refrigerator). Purée. Make a white chocolate ganache in a proportion of 150 g of chocolate, 70 g of cream, 33% fat. Add mashed potatoes.
The filling is ready.

2. Cherry

Cherry Kurd in proportion: for 100 g of cherry puree (you can from frozen berries) 1 egg, 50 g of sugar, 25 g of butter.

These are the cookies
🔗 🔗

I was carried away by pasta for a long time, now I can say in a day. There are two types of cooking pasta in French and Italian merengue. There are a lot of recipes with French meringue, it is customary to cook in Italian one by one.
It will take
150gr. almond flour (I grind it myself)
150gr. powdered sugar
55 gr. protein (the main thing is that the protein is at room temperature and it does not matter if it is aged or not)
another 55gr. squirrel
for syrup 150g. Sahara
50g. water
dye - it is better when it is in harmony with the taste of the filler in color
For the filler, you can use ganache (it is better to flavor the cream) Or add mashed potatoes (I will not repeat much about this). The flight is great for fantasy.
I make an Italian meringue with the first half of the protein (I pour in the syrup about 117 degrees)
I sift almond flour with powdered sugar, and mix in the second 55g. squirrel.
I mix the meringue into the almond mixture.
I put it on the rugs in a checkerboard pattern, leave it until a crust forms. After 18 minutes in the oven at 140 degrees.
Orange mood - orange-ginger.


And this is with cherries

[LenaSelena]

LenaSelena,: hi: nice to meet you!
I also did it often before, tried different options. But then I found the recipe in the book "The Great Cookbook of Alain Ducasse" and settled on it. It is practically the same as you brought. The only thing he uses is so-called sugar for enrobing. It is powdered sugar + cornstarch in a ratio of 0.3% to one. And in my opinion the amount of water for the syrup is also slightly different.There the recipe is given at the rate of 1 kg of dry ingredients, I counted for a smaller amount myself.

[Twist]

Twist also very glad to meet you! According to the recipe, I can say that I read it in blogs, started with it, and after the MK with the pastry chef I stopped at it. It is quite simple, and the Italian meringue is quite stable with a minimum of fears. In the version with the French there are fewer ingredients, until I worked it out, the skirt of course seems taller in them, and they seem to be authentic.

[LenaSelena]

LenaSelena, perhaps with French meringue and more authentic, but all of mine liked it better with Italian. For me, this option is easier and safer. I have already worked it out to the smallest detail and now the finished products look completely different from the photo in this thread. This is the very first attempt at writing.
P.S. I will be glad to communicate by name and "you" (if possible).

Oh my God! How I want them, but stashnooooo !!!!!

[Svetlana]

Svetlana, honestly, there is nothing terrible. Try it!

[Marine]

Marine, and we cook the syrup before testing for a soft ball? ... - I don't have a thermometer ...

[Sveta]

Sveta, Yes. The technology is like the protein custard, only a little less whipping.

: girl_sad: Nothing worked for me. I read so much information - I checked all the stages visually, it seemed like it should work out, the only thing is, I'm not sure about the oven temperature ..... After the deposited dough has stood (for about an hour) with a thin crust, the dough did not stick to the finger, but when baking crevices have formed on the surface and the middle is kind of strange, inside there is a cavity. She did not collect the cookies, the children were so grumpy, although the cream was already ready.

[Sveta]

Sveta, there may be several reasons: either the syrup is undercooked, or the proteins are broken - and therefore the cracks. The size of the blanks also affects - the larger they are in diameter and thicker, the greater the risk that cracks and too large a cavity will appear inside.
In the photo it is not very good what the "skirt" is, but its thickness also affects the way the cookies look inside.

[Marine,]

Marine, yes, the skirts did not work at all, I squeezed out blanks with a diameter of 4 cm, then they still blurred a little. The syrup was cooked strictly until a soft ball. Whipped the squirrels until the syrup was added to a strong foam ... Then with the syrup - until the squirrels were kept with a cap on the corollas, and the peaks in the bowl gradually descended. Well - I don't know ..... It's a pity ....

[Sveta]

Sveta, I'm also very sorry. I, too, do not succeed in everything the first time, and the appearance of these cookies was also lame at first. But the taste immediately turned out to be the same as that of those bought in the confectionery. Therefore, I settled on this recipe.
Perhaps you just need to "fill your hand" and everything will be OK.

[Marish]

Marish, please tell me, is almond flour a must? Or can you replace it with another? I tried to do it with peanut, until it worked, but I went through the whole process, and everything was not bad, but the result "let us down a little." And one more mistake, I made more of them than necessary. Does this also affect?

[Natasha]

Natasha, peanut flour is not suitable in this case, only almond flour. I have never dealt with peanut flour and never met on sale.

And one more mistake, I made more of them than necessary. Does this also affect?

The baking time depends on the size. I indicated the time for workpieces about 5 cm in diameter.
I could suggest something if we were talking about failed almond cookies, but in this case I can't even imagine the result

I also make pasta according to this recipe. From my experience, I can say that blanks are made from pistachio flour and hazelnut flour well. Only nuts should also be taken not salted or fried.

[Anya]

Anya, thanks a lot for sharing!
Is almond flour replaced with pistachio flour by 100%, or is part of the almond flour added? I'd like to try it!

[Marinochka,]

Marinochka, I only take pistachio. No addition of almonds. Moreover, they don't sell it to us, and there is no way to get to Moscow, so I buy large fresh pistachios in the market and grind them in a meat grinder.It turns out non-uniformly with a blender, but not on a coffee grinder. The flour is soaked and the dough will not work.

[Anya]

Anya, Thanks for the clarification! I have a weakness for pistachios and pastries with them!
Flour is not for sale either, I make it for pies-muffins. And now I will also spoil my cookies!

Indulge in pampering! It's amazingly delicious!

[Anya]

Anya, I will definitely try!

ABOUT! By the time you appeared, you had already "rubbed" Marish, and I just had only peanut (I bought it long ago, I didn't know where to put it), and I was too lazy to grind the almonds. And for taste I added almond flavoring, I thought to deceive myself. The top is cracked and tastes slightly chewy. And, of course, there was no skirt.

I buy large fresh pistachios from the market and grind them in a meat grinder.

Anyut, that is, a standard meat grinder attachment? How for minced meat? and it turns out straight flour? Who would have thought ... I was sure I would just grind / crush. Need to try thanks for the tip.
Does the freshly ground rule apply to nuts too? Grain is recommended to be left to lie down, depending on the variety, for 30-60 days to improve the properties, if I am not confusing anything.

[Anya]

Anya, I think that this rule does not apply to nuts. I always use it immediately after grinding. True, I use either a blender or an electric coffee grinder.

[Anya]

Anyut, that is, a standard meat grinder attachment? How for minced meat? and it turns out straight flour? Who would have thought ... I was sure I would just grind / crush. Need to try thanks for the tip.
Does the freshly ground rule apply to nuts too? Grain is recommended to be left to lie down, depending on the variety, for 30-60 days to improve the properties, if I am not confusing anything.

Anya, I grind on a regular fine mesh with a manual meat grinder. To be honest, I grind all the nuts at once. It turns out an excellent homogeneous fine flour, well, maybe there is a little bit of larger grains. I store it in the refrigerator in a glass jar. The last batch lasted three months. Smell like nuts once ground. Recently used.

Pistachio pasta with chocolate ganache

baked half for raspberry pasta

Pistachio pasta with chocolate ganache

baked half for raspberry pasta

Whoa! What are your ideal ones! And such ahhhhhh little!
How toy!
Class!

[Meri klarissa]

Meri klarissawhat handsome men! Thanks for the wonderful photo.

Thank you girls! In fact, I'm just learning.

I, too, turned out to taste, but the skirt is not, but I took the wrong nozzle (I just sowed a hole). apparently laid out the thick ones. I will try. almonds another 800 grams ...

Girls, but how to make pasta with raspberry, apricot, lemon and others? Gluing matched. jam? Or how? I've also met colored ones, like glazed ones. Has anyone done this?

Only by adding food dyes. Not juices and jams. I use dry Parfait. Sold in many chain stores, in departments where baking powder, vanillin, etc.

Gel dye won't work? So what about the taste, is it really a flavoring agent?

girls, hello, what does it mean to boil the syrup until a soft ball? and when to add dyes to get multiple cookie colors?

Made macarons many times, inspired by Nina (Niksya). The skirt was not always successful. But I want to say that it is magically delicious !!! In the morning with a cup of coffee is an unearthly pleasure, even if the skirt is not high !!!

Well, here I got to this miracle cookie. I ask experienced girls to comment on my first macarons
here the dough seems to me very thick (weighed everything)

here they are on drying - not blurred at all !!!!!!!!

and the result




where and what could go wrong?