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...

Never judge a book by it's cover...

After an impromptu family get-together last night at our place, I decided to give it a go at making macarons. I had been hearing more and more about them through a Facebook friend and I wanted to see if they were as temperamental as I had read up on.

I had all the ingredients necessary, and everything seemed to be going so well. My almonds grinded without a hitch, my egg whites formed the perfect peaks, my batter looked and felt like the right consistency. I was even able to make every macaron almost identical in size - well, as good as a first timer could make them of course.

I continuously went back to the oven to make sure that my macarons were forming their perfect feet - they were! - and that the tops were smooth and glossy - a success! - and even after I took them out of the over I could barely believe my eyes.

I was a natural! All the blogs I had read about them lied to me! These were not hard to make, either that or I must have a natural ability for them. My mind starts reeling about all the different recipes I searched and how I can start baking these all the time - they were so simple! - and how people will come running by the truck loads to buy them from me.

And half an hour later, after I've let them cool down, my dreams came crashing to a halt.

I went to take one off the baking sheet and all I held in my hand was the little perfectly smooth and glossy dome. The bottom half remain on my baking sheet, stuck to the bottom and under cooked.

Little did I know that these pesky little buggers would become the bane of my baking existance. I have tried three times since and have yet to perfect them. I will, however, not give up so quickly. So for now I leave my adventures in macarons on the back burner, I think I'll stick to banana muffins for now...