Stress Baking- Macaron Edition

Hello. My name is Nea and I am a baker.
My interests include delicious sugary confections, Friends reruns, anything involving butter, and designing and making clothes. I am currently a last month high school senior who is headed off to BYU Provo in the fall.

I plan on being a domestic goddess someday. 


Tonight, in the hopes of procrastinating on studying for my AP Music Theory test tomorrow, I decided to take on a daring baker's challenge: the Parisienne Macaron. The beautiful colors have always tickled me pink (as you will see later) and the mere thought of baking these delicate French cookies can send bakers running! I was up for a challenge tonight.

Just look at those vibrant colors! Gorgeous. 

I decided to opt for Martha Stewart's recipe because, honestly, it was the only recipe I could find using standard measurements instead of metric units! Martha's recipe can be found here. I wasn't feeling up to driving to the store, so I had to make my own almond flour by grinding up the almonds we had in our mini food processor. I added a few drops of red food coloring to the egg/sugar mixture to give them the gorgeous pink color. I followed the recipe other than my homemade almond flour.

Martha warned to start in the middle and work out with the piping tip because you don't want a peak in the middle. Although the recipe said they only need 10 minutes some of mine took about 12-13 minutes. 

I originally took them out at 10 minutes, but I found that the insides of the macarons were too gummy and came out as I tried to take them off the pan. I put the pan back in the oven for 3 more minutes and they were perfect. 

Freshly frosted!

I think they turned out very pretty! The pictures needed a Parisienne touch, though. 

I found these super cute confection boxes at Michael's craft store and I simply couldn't resist. 

Aaaaaand... Here's a picture of me with my adorable macarons!

Ignore my day-after-prom sleepy eyes, please. 

Until next time, my dears,

Nea