French Macarons
Instructions
Sonia teaches us how to prepare Marie Antoinette's favorite pastries: the macarons. Made of two discs of almond meringue with a tempting filling, we'll prepare today the yellow lemon macarons!
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Today we'll be preparing together the most famous pastries of France: the macarons, a pleasure to the eye and the palate, made of 2 almond meringue discs with a creamy filling. Let's see together what ingredients we'll need:
For the macarons:
Let's make together the lemon macarons:
Let's start saying that the macaron recipe we're going to make here is a base recipe; we've chosen the yellow food dye to refer to the color of lemons, since we'll use a lemon filling, but for your macarons you can choose any kind of colour and filling. So, put about cup of water in a saucepan and add 7 oz of sugar, that is 1 cup; the syrup we're making must boil until it reaches 245F (118C), so you need a candy thermometer. In the meanwhile, while waiting for the right temperature, beat half of the egg whites, that is less than 1/3 cup, until stiff.
When the egg whites are stiff and the syrup is at 245F (118C), start the mixer at a medium-slow speed and add the syrup in a thin stream. After the syrup, add the food coloring and speed up the mixer, and let the mixture run until cold.
And here is our nice coloured meringue, as you can see it's very firm. Now, put the almond flour and the powdered sugar in a bowl through a sifter, since, as said before, the almond flour must be superfine and without lumps; then add the remaining egg whites, less than 1/3 cup, and you'll get a rather thick consistency. Now add a spoonful of the dough to the almonds... just to soften them... the remaining dough will be added later, stirring gently from top to bottom so the meringue doesn't collapse.
After blending the dough, put in a pastry bag with a smooth nozzle 3/10-inch (8 mm) wide. Then pipe many small balls of 1-1,5 inches (3-4 cm) in diameter onto a baking pan lined with parchment paper ... in this way. Once done, let them rest for at least half an hour so that they'll become flat and shiny, without this bulge. After that, bake at 320F in a fan oven or at 350F in a static oven for at least 10 minutes; after 10 minutes open the oven door and leave it ajar for 2 minutes more, then you can take them out to cool completely.
10 min. -- 350F (180C)
2 min. -- 350F (180C) oven door ajar
While the macarons are baking, let's move on to prepare the filling, the lemon custard, so beat the yolks with the sugar in a bowl and pour them into a small saucepan together with the juice and the zest of the 2 lemons... cook on a low flame until the custard is nice and thick, as you can see; then remove the pan from the heat and fold in the softened butter. When the butter is completely melted, place the custard in the fridge to set.
Once the macarons are cold and the custard thick, we can move on to fill them, so take the flat side of the cookie... and generously pipe the custard on top, then cover with the other flat side. Our macaron is ready. Go on this way until you've run out of ingredients, with this recipe you should make about 40 macarons, that is 80 cookies to be joined together.
And finally here are your macarons, Marie Antoinette's favourite pastries. To taste them at their best, we suggest to keep the macarons in the fridge for at least one night in a sealed container; from Sonia and GialloZafferano, bye and see you next video recipe!
