Basic TM Macarons

To be honest, I was never a big fan of Macarons. Sure they're pretty... but I could never understand how they could fetch such a large price tag?! There seems to be such a huge hype with everyone making them, even my hubby asked me if I could make a batch. How could I say no? He paid good money for the thermomix, he can have whatever he wants!
But I hate wasting food, I've heard of the many failures people go through when making them... so I decided to try a simple recipe I found on Superkitchenmachine by Mara.
I liked how the recipe doesn't call for a huge list of ingredients, so even if I failed, it wouldn't be too exy and I wouldn't feel so bad. 

After making them successfully (ok, so not very pretty, but still tasty) for the first time, I found myself already fantasising about making my next batch. So warning, this could be addictive!! :)


Ingredients

• 75g almond meal
• 140 icing sugar
• 10g granulated sugar
• 60g egg whites (approx 2 eggs)
• pinch of fine sea salt

Method
Prepare your equipment:

• Line 2 baking trays with baking paper with your macaron cookie stencil
• A piping bag in a tall glass

1. Measure the almond meal and icing sugar in the TM and pulse Turbo 4-5 times to 'sift' the mixture. This is what is called the 'Tant pour tant' or TPT. Set aside
2. Clean and dry the TM bowl and insert the butterfly. Add your granulated sugar, salt, egg whites and whisk for 4 min/3.1/2 sp/MC off. The meringue needs to be really, really firm, slightly glossy and looking maybe a bit too dry. It should be stuck to the sides of the bowl. You can add colouring while it's beating
    
3. Pour the meringue into a big bowl and add the TPT to it. Most recipes tell you to do these in parts and gentle about the folding, but the recipe I followed didn't require all that - suits me :p Just be steady folding the batter. It should deflate and get a thinner consistency. After about 20 folds ish, it should make ribbons that disappear into the batter (for this amount anyway)
4. Pour the batter into the piping bag. I put my piping bag in a tall glass and spoon the mixture in. Cut the tip and pipe the cookies onto your sheets. Make sure they're spaced 5 cms apart or they will stick together (happened to me as I got too greedy and tried to put them all on the one sheet). This recipe makes approx 50 cookies or 25 filled macarons.
    
5. Lift the trays straight up with both hands (parallel to your flat work bench), drop the tray a few times. Rotate 90 degrees and repeat until you do all 4 sides. This step lets out all the air bubbles which would cause the surface to crack if they stayed inside the macaron. Set aside for about 30mins while the macarons dry (time depends on temperature and humidity - shells should be dry to touch without sticking to fingers).
6. Preheat your oven to 120C (fan) or 150C (no fan) - although you may need to test with your oven as every oven is different. Don't bake them higher than 150C. Bake one tray at a time in the middle rack - every oven is different so keep your eye on them and work out how long it takes accordingly. It's so exciting when you see 'feet'!!
   
7. To check if they're done, life the corner of the baking paper and try to peel it from the bottom of the cookie. If it sticks, it isn't ready. If it comes off, take out the tray and put the second one in. Cool on the rack with the baking paper (it's easier to remove them once they've cooled) and pipe your desired filling. 

With Swiss meringue rosewater buttercream

with Salted Caramel

I like to refrigerate them overnight

Tips

• For chocolate macarons, add 10g pure cocoa powder with the icing sugar for the sifting.
• For coffee macarons, 2 tsp espresso powder.
• For lime/lemon/orange macarons, add zest of 1 or 2 fruits when making the almond meal
• Macarons are better after 24 hours. I normally fill them and keep them in the fridge
• If you want to decorate the tops, sprinkling has to be done while the surface is still wet but painting when the skin is already formed.