Recipe: Vanilla Macarons

I have to start this post off by saying how apprehensive I was to make these macarons for the first time – they’ve got such a reputation for being difficult to make and so easy to get wrong, that I just put off making them for so long. Well, that changed over the last couple of days and I decided to jump in and give it a go. I bought the most beautiful book a couple of weeks back, which came with such clear instructions, as well as helpful tips and hints to help along the way that I felt confident I could make them work out okay. And they turned out so lovely for a first go. They make not exactly be completely uniform or as beautiful as in the pictures I’ve seen over the past couple of years, but they’re not bad at all, and they taste really quite delicious. This was the first recipe in the book, and is pretty simple, so I think I’ll be giving the more adventurous flavours a go soon, in fact, I can’t wait to keep developing the skill until I perfect it. Watch out everyone that knows me, you’ll getting these on every possible occasion! This recipe is from Macarons.

Ingredients

For the shells

• 60g egg whites
• 60g caster sugar
• 7.5ml egg white powder
• 120g icing sugar
• 60g fround almonds
• Seeds of 1 vanilla pod

For the filling

• 80g icing sugar
• 40g unsalted butter, softened
• 20ml double cream
• Seeds of 1 vanilla pod

1. Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Fit a piping bag with a plain round tip.
2. Place the egg whites in a clean bowl, before sifting in the caster sugar and egg white powder. Whisk with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together the icing sugar and ground almonds. Add the vanilla seeds and the egg white mixture, using a spatula to gently fold the mixture together. It’s ready when the mixture falls in ribbons when lifted with the spatula.
4. Fill the piping bag with the mixture and pipe 24 4cm rounds onto the lined baking tray.
5. Preheat the oven to 130 degrees celcius and leave the baking tray out in a warm, dry place for at least 15 minutes, until the shells form a firm skin.
6. Place the tray in the middle of the oven for 10 minutes, before removing from the oven and leaving to cool on the tray.
7. For the filling, place the icing sugar and butter in a bowl and whisk until crumbly. Add the double cream and vanilla seeds and whisk until you have a smooth buttercream.
8. To fill the macarons, place a teaspoon of buttercream onto the flat side of one of the macaron shells and top with the flat side of another. Repeat until you have 12 macarons.