Wednesday 19 June 2013

Pink Almond Macaroons P. 175

As my final recipe for baking Monday I decided to make macaroons. I've never really got on with egg white based recipes, so this was a challenge for me. I used a recipe from Mary Berry's complete cookbook for pink almond macaroons. 

So the first step is to combine the icing sugar and almonds together in a bowl. Put this to one side. 

In a saucepan combine the sugar and the water, heat it slowly and then boil for a few minutes until it's a clear consistency. I found this point very hard to judge as mine didn't really go clear. I ended up adding some more water to the solution to try and achieve the consistency I thought it should be. 
Sugar and Water heating in a saucepan

Meanwhile beat up the egg whites until they are stiff. 
Egg whites whisked till stiff.
Slowly combine the sugar syrup and the egg whites. Add egg whites to the almonds and mix to a paste. Add red colouring to turn it pink (mine never really turned pink, they went brown!). Add some whisked egg whites to the almond paste and then combine the remainder. This is then piped into 3.5cm circles on lined baking trays. Leave this to dry for an hour, cooked for 25mins and then cooled in the oven for a futher hour. 


Macaroons cooked and cooled. 
Buttercream is then made combining butter and icing sugar. 


Buttercream ready to use
Use the butter cream with the jam to stick together the macaroons. 

Finished macaroons. 
The macaroons are ready to eat. 

My macaroon ready to eat
The verdict: I found this recipe quite hard to follow and work out what was required of me. The macaroons didn't come out pink, so I needed to add more food colouring. They were also too crunchy but this is because I forgot the first bunch and cooked it for too long. The second batch came out better, more chewy. The taste was really nice and I really enjoyed them. I would like to try these again to see whether I can improve my presentation and make them slightly less crunchy. I would mark these 8/10. 

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