Macaron Trial Attempt #1

Okay... so I'm being a bit of a follower instead of a leader, but it is for good reason. Bloggers from across the nation seem to be addicted to these silly little cookies called French macarons. I have to admit, when I first saw these little cuties I was curious, so I started to look for different flavors: pistachio and matcha in green, raspberry in hot pink, lemon yellow, chocolate orange, coffee brown, who-knows-what-flavor blue and purple and white. With such beautiful colors how could I resist?

I will say, I am not much of a baker and certainly not much of a "direction follower", but I did attempt to make two batches last thursday... and it went surprisingly well. I followed this recipe. I liked this one the best because it has step-by-step photo instructions. I don't know about you guys, but I need to see what it is supposed to look like to do well.

My first batch went slowly I think because I was afraid. Every blog and every recipe I saw about making French macarons reported how finicky they were to make. I didn't run into many problems however. I just made sure to have all my ingredients measured out before I started since it goes fast... once you know what you're doing anyways.

Contrary to the recipe, I used a large ziplock bag with the very tip snipped off instead of a pastry bag. I also used gel food color and added it at the very very end of whipping the egg whites and sugar with good results. It also takes a great deal of patience, but let the cookies rest for at least an hour... I figure when the French make these, they go out window shopping for an hour, come back, then throw them in the oven.

I made a white chocolate ganache flavored with raspberry to go in the middle that turned out runny, so I whipped it. I liked the whipped filling better than my second batch with just plain 'ol melted white chocolate.