If at first you don't succeed...

Try try again!!!

I am speechless. I did it. I made macarons that were not horrible. That were cooked through and didn't stick to my parchment paper (note to self: must invest in a few Silpats...). I will admit, I made an attempt last night, and although they looked perfect, they were far from it. 

Chunky and the feet are too uneven for my liking.

The golden color is not added, it's due to me slightly overcooking the macarons. Hey, it was my sixth attempt - or wait, was it my fifth? - well let's just say I've tried this a time or two already and failed each time almost more miserably than the last. But something we running through me today that gave me the will to make them again.


And I did and I could not be happier with the results. I did try my own spin on it... I made the basic recipe (I follow Tartelette's recipe - hers is the only one I've attempted that's worked for me. Just go to her site and search for "macaron". She is a complete genius when it comes to flavour combinations.) with a twist. I took out part of the almonds and added in walnuts instead. It gives it a bit of a different flavour to it. Inside I made a Banana Buttercream Frosting.

Look at the feet! Just the way they should look!

I did take the advice of the my above mentioned macaron inspiration, and this time around I ground up the almonds, walnuts and icing sugar together in my food processor at the same time. This is the first time I didn't have to re-process a huge amount of leftovers. I let the processor have its way with the ingredients for a minutes, scraped the edges, and then did it for another minute. You can 100% see a difference in yesterday's macarons texture compared to today's. Yesterday I ground up the almonds on their own, and they were fairly chunky. Today, much smoother.

Fresh from the oven...

I couldn't be more excited with the end product. My boyfriend wasn't complaining either - and he's pretty honest when it comes to my baking - he had three of them. After a fairly uneventful day at work, these darling creations saved me.

I can't wait to figure out what kind to do next...