Sweat it Out for Macaroons

I am addicted to French Macaroons.

For a while, I contemplated making macaroons, backing out and having second thoughts again and again. Two of my friends who tried recipes after recipes were inconsolable after unsuccessful attempts while some who made good after trying few times sometimes get inconsistent results..

This morning, after a two week of non baking hiatus, I decided to gather some courage and pursue baking these delicate chewy gems the Italian Meringue way. I shan't be posting my recipe just yet as I am still in the process of experimenting various recipes for a more successful and realistic bake-able recipe. I shall also be as honest with you as I can with what happened this morning... (now you all know why I was not in FB chatting away too)

*blunder no 1
As this is my first attempt in making French Macaroons, I got into a PANIC when I found that I had forgotten to divide my egg whites into half quantity (this is what happens when you don't read your recipes carefully). I had actually been beating all the 120g of egg whites instead of 60g. Thus, I had to throw half of the whipped froth and crack new whites to make up for another 60g which were to be added to my almond and sugar mixture.

*blunder no 2
Then I made a horrible mistake of using a plain plastic bag for piping instead of the usual piping bag and found that this plastic bag was too soft, the cut out opening was too small.

*blunder no 3
Silly ol me then decided to cut out the piping hole just a little bigger (or so i thought???!)

THE AFTERMATH
1. the batter gushed out incontrollably...
2. suddenly found myself in a mayhem of runny batter of messy globs..
3. gooey sticky almond mixture batter on trays, parchment paper, kitchen top, drawer handles, my kitchen towel..

arrrrggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I declare now that I am in a ruinous state of disorder that led me to an undeniable branding of a klutz, an oaf, a goon, a nincompoop and what names you have in your first attempt in your home science class (I had heard from, plenty of times from my schoolmates, since I was always safe and dry in the Commerce stream)

Is this what a simple looking French Macaroon does to its victim? No wonder these things do not come cheap! You actually pay for the efforts of cleanup and mess!

So I decided to 'scoop' up whatever batter I had left, put them in a new piping bag ( a real piping bag) cleaned the place up, washed the trays, cut out new parchment paper, got burnt by that darn hot oven because I cleaned the knobs, opened the hot oven door and held on to it with my fingers (YIKES!) and then cleaned myself up and wore an apron to prepare for a second war battle with the batter.

And I piped out some irregular shapes of macaroons halfheartedly, baked two batches just in time to turn off the oven and picked my girl from nursery and tracing a whiff of almond aroma. Phew!

I got back, damped the parchment and peeled off the macaroons and ate some of them hungrily and decided that it was just delicious, soft chewy and worth every effort that I had almost forgotten this morning. The appearance was alright except for the first batch that collapsed because I under-baked them. Oh I had no more energy for the creams in them so I used Nutella instead.

So what if my macaroons had no 'feet'.

More Shortcomings

Underbaked thus collapsed

I'll be ready for more macaroon venture in weeks to come. Cross my fingers.