blog #365 >> The Many Moods of Macaroons

What I learned today... Macaroons are touchy little bastards! ...sorry... I've obviously been shut up in my kitchen baking cookies by myself for entirely too long today. My macaroons were certainly a learning experience though. And I'm going to take what I learned and make them better. By the time I got to my sixth batch, I had them down. And I learned all kinds of new tricks. Next time, I'm going to grease the parchment, and I'm going to draw little 1.5" circles on the backs of the parchment to get all my cookies consistent. I went a little pastry bag crazy today. And I found that the 1.5" cookies baked up best. I also found the perfect oven temperature, 305 degrees, and the perfect baking time is 9 minutes. I also discovered that the best way to not over mix the batter, and that's REALLY easy to do, is to add the food coloring to the egg whites before you mix them into the almond flour, sugar mixture. And I learned that I need to stop mixing the second the batter is smooth. Over mixed cookies turn into pancakes, and under mixed cookies turn into earthquakes. These are getting better every time I make them!

My field of macaroons.

Green almond flavored macaroons. Perfectly mixed. Happy

Pink peppermint macaroons. Perfectly mixed. Very happy

Yellow orange flavored macaroons. Slightly under mixed, a couple of them cracked. Smug

Chocolate flavored macaroons. Perfectly mixed. Cheerful

Orange pineapple macaroons. Over mixed and flat. Sad

Purple blackberry macaroons. Under mixed and a lumpy, cracked mess, but still tasty. Angry


... and as promised, a picture of the gingerbread tree house. It's assembled and structurally sound, but it needs to dry overnight before I can decorate it.

Cheers!
T