Wishing you and your family a warm and snuggie holiday season!
Making marshmallows is like magic.
Think about it. Three ordinary ingredients – sugar, corn syrup, and gelatin, plus a little water – go from your everyday pantry staples to wonderous, fluffy, shiny marshmallow in just a matter of minutes.
It’s one of the things that a baker can have in her arsenal that elicits a truly awe-inspiring response. And the funny thing is that they are ridiculously easy to make.
Most Americans are familiar with the Jet Puffed cylindrical shaped marshmallows. Mini ones for hot chocolate and giant ones for roasting and toasting. And apparently, Americans love their marshmallows. They eat 90 million pounds of marshmallows per year!
But over the years, homemade or gourmet marshmallows have been popping up in stores. Once you’ve tried a homemade marshmallow its hard to go back.
There are endless variations when you make your own, too. Use vanilla extract for a traditional marshmallow or add peppermint extract and a little red food coloring for a pretty candy cane effect.
These have become a staple in my Christmas baking over the years and makes great gifts. This year’s batch went to my co-workers in cute little tins, topped off with adorable homemade penguin tags made by one of my best friends.
But nothing goes better with homemade peppermint marshmallows that a steaming mug of hot chocolate to share with a loved one on a cold December night.
Enjoy!
Marshmallows
Adapted from The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The Original Classics
Note: I learned (though a math error on my part) that using slightly less than 3 cups of sugar (20 ounces versus 21 ounces) results in a less sticky marshmallow, making cutting squares a less messy endeavor.
Canola oil, for brushing
3 tablespoons unflavored gelatin
3 cups granulated sugar
1 1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (if using peppermint extract, only use 1 teaspoon – peppermint is much stronger than vanilla)
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting
Brush a 9 x 13 inch baking dish with canola oil. Line the pan with parchment paper long enough to overhand the sides. Brush parchment with oil. Set dish aside.
Pour 3/4 cup of water in the bowl of a stand mixer. Sprinkle gelatin over the water. Let stand for 5 minutes until softened.
Place the sugar, corn syrup, salt, and 3/4 cup water in a saucepan over high heat. Let mixture come to a boil. Clip a candy thermometer to the side of the pan and cook until the mixture reaches 238 degrees, or soft ball stage, about 9 minutes.
Attach the mixer bowl to the stand mixer and fit with a whisk attachment. With the mixer running on low, pour the hot syrup mixture down the side of the bowl, mixing into the gelatin. Slowly increase the speed to high and beat until the mixture is very stiff, fluffy and white, about 12 minutes. Add in the extract.
Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and let set, uncovered, for at least three hours.
To unmold, dust a cutting board with confectioners’ sugar. Lift marshmallow from pan using the parchment overhang and invert onto the cutting board. Peel the parchment away from marshmallow. Using a long serrated knife, cut marshmallow into desired size squares, cleaning the knife under cold water as necessary to avoid sticking.
To say that I like tradition would be an understatement. Far be it from me to be the one to break a tradition for silly reasons like being a grown adult. That is the reason why my two cousins and I continue to set our alarms for 2:00am on Christmas morning to sneak downstairs and open our stockings, only to re-wrap them and open them with our families a few hours later. Its just tradition.
So if I’m going to continue our stocking tradition, I was clearly going to continue making the Christmas fudge every year. My mom makes a few fudge recipes every Christmas but this one is the fudge recipe, Great Grandma Perrone’s Sees fudge recipe. My mom has been making this fudge for almost 38 years and remembers Grandma Perrone making it every year when she was younger, meaning this recipe has been made in our family for close to 50 years.
My mom remembers when she was younger waiting anxiously with my uncle for my great grandma and grandpa to drive up from Salinas, knowing that there was a tin full of fudge riding in the car with them. When they would arrive at my grandparent’s house, they would rush out to the car to help unload the car and would be greeted with a big hug and an even bigger piece of fudge from my great grandpa.
For me, this is always the first thing my mom makes when she begins her holiday baking bonanza every year. Even to this day, I will sneak into the back room where all of the baked goodies are stored and cut a piece from the still slightly warm batch of fudge. Its just tradition.
Great Grandma Perrone’s Sees Fudge
Like any recipe where chocolate is the star, the better chocolate you use the better the finished product is.
4 1/2 cups sugar
12 ounces evaporated milk
1/2 cup butter (1 stick), 1/2 cup margarine (1 stick)
18 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips
8 ounces marshmallow cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups chopped walnuts
Butter a 9 x 13 inch pan and set aside.
Place chocolate chips, marshmallow cream and vanilla in a large bowl and set aside.
In a large sauce pan, bring to a boil the sugar, evaporated milk, butter and margarine. Lower heat and boil for approximately ten minutes, until the mixture reaches 234 degrees on a candy thermometer. Stir mixture constantly so it does not burn. Pour mixture into the bowl with chocolate and stir until well blended. Add chopped nuts an stir.
Pour into buttered pan and cool overnight.
Quick! What is the first flavor that comes to mind when you think of Thanksgiving?
Is it turkey?
Ok, now put that in a cupcake. Not as easy as you think, huh?
Of course there are many, many other Thanksgiving-y flavors and the November’s IRON CUPCAKE challenged us bakers to put those traditional Thanksgiving flavors into a cupcake.
I went with cranberry hoping it would be a less obvious flavor choice. I had finally perfected my version of my dad’s wine cake, so my final creation was a cranberry-orange wine cake, or Tipsy Cranberry-Orange Cupcakes. The cupcakes were topped with a sugared cranberry, which played down the tartness of the raw cranberries.
There were some very creative creations. There was only one savory cupcake that included all of the traditional Thanksgiving sides and was aptly named ‘All the Sides’. It won the Most Creative category by a landslide. And surprisingly, there were no pumpkin cupcakes. I’m guessing most thought that was way too obvious. So instead, there were quite a few sweet potato cupcakes. Boy was I glad I didn’t choose sweet potato!
Twelve mini cupcakes later the votes were in. And guess what? I placed second! It was completely unexpected and very humbling to know that so many others really enjoyed my cupcakes.
The best part about it is that I created a super simple holiday cupcake that I get to share with you. Enjoy!
Tipsy Cranberry-Orange Cupcakes
Adapted from my dad’s wine cake
3 cups cake flour, sifted
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light-brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
4 eggs, slightly beaten
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup sherry wine
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon grated orange zest, from one large orange
2 cups chopped fresh cranberries
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Combine the granulated sugar and orange zest in a food processor and mix until the sugar is pale orange and fragrant.
In a large bowl, whisk together the cake flour, sugars, baking powder, and nutmeg.
Add the eggs, oil, sherry, and vanilla to the dry ingredients and beat with a hand mixer until combined, about 3 minutes.
Fold in the chopped cranberries.
Fill lined mini cupcake tins 3/4 full. Bake for 12-13 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.
Makes 72 mini cupcakes.
Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting
Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
Using an electric stand mixer fitted with a beater attachment, beat the butter, cream cheese and brown sugar on medium-high until smooth. Use immediately. Can be stored in the refrigerator up to 3 days.
Makes 2 1/2 cups.
Ask an Italian if they have had cannoli and you are likely to get a dumbfounded response. But, ask an Italian if they have made cannoli and you are likely to get a very different response. I would be among one of those Italians sheepishly raising their hand admitting to never having made cannoli. But cannoli making isn’t part of every Italian’s familial traditions.
Cannoli is a traditional Italian dessert, originating in Sicily, that was brought over by Italian immigrants in the early 1900s and was made iconic by the famous Godfather clip. Most of my family is from northern Italy so cannoli making has not been a part of my family’s traditions. But we are certainly familiar with frying dough, so I didn’t balk whatsoever when I saw this month’s DB challenge was cannoli.
My mom makes scarpetts, which is fried dough tossed in sugar, every year at Christmas, so I enlisted her help in supervising the giant pot of frying oil, although it really wasn’t as intimidating as I thought it would be.
Once we got the process down, they were very easy to make. She rolled out the dough, I wrapped it around the molds and tossed them in the oil. They only take 2-4 minutes to cook, so the process goes very fast. Make sure to slide them off the molds fairly soon after taking them out of the oil, otherwise the tend to stick to the molds.
The shells turned out perfect. The dough was tough at first but ended up being very easy to work with. They browned beautifully and were the right crispness and the combination of cocoa powder and marsala wine lent a richness to the dough that isn’t a characteristic of other types of pastry doughs.
I decided to make two types of fillings, one of ricotta and the second a pistachio ice cream, which was a little difficult getting into the cannoli shells but was certainly delicious. My ricotta filling was a little grainy, so next time I’ll try half ricotta, half marscapone.
My favorite part of this month’s challenge was that it was the final nudge I needed to finally break my cannoli molds out of their packaging. Plus, we might have found a new tradition for Christmases to come.
And don’t forget to always take the cannoli.
The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.
Lidisano’s Cannoli
Makes 22-24 4-inch cannoli
Prep time: Dough – 2 hours and 10-20 minutes, including resting time, and depending on whether you do it by hand or machine.
Filling – 5-10 minutes plus chilling time (about 2 hours or more)
Frying – 1-2 minutes per cannoli
Assemble – 20–30 minutes
CANNOLI SHELLS
2 cups (250 grams/16 ounces) all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons(28 grams/1 ounce) sugar
1 teaspoon (5 grams/0.06 ounces) unsweetened baking cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon (1.15 grams/0.04 ounces) ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon (approx. 3 grams/0.11 ounces) salt
3 tablespoons (42 grams/1.5 ounces) vegetable or olive oil
1 teaspoon (5 grams/0.18 ounces) white wine vinegar
Approximately 1/2 cup (approx. 59 grams/approx. 4 fluid ounces/approx. 125 ml) sweet Marsala or any white or red wine you have on hand
1 large egg, separated (you will need the egg white but not the yolk)
Vegetable or any neutral oil for frying – about 2 quarts (8 cups/approx. 2 litres)
1/2 cup (approx. 62 grams/2 ounces) toasted, chopped pistachio nuts, mini chocolate chips/grated chocolate and/or candied or plain zests, fruits etc.. for garnish
Confectioners’ sugar
CANNOLI FILLING
2 lbs (approx. 3.5 cups/approx. 1 kg/32 ounces) ricotta cheese, drained
1 2/3 cups cup (160 grams/6 ounces) confectioner’s sugar, (more or less, depending on how sweet you want it), sifted
1/2 teaspoon (1.15 grams/0.04 ounces) ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon (4 grams/0.15 ounces) pure vanilla extract or the beans from one vanilla bean
3 tablespoons (approx. 28 grams/approx. 1 ounce) finely chopped good quality chocolate of your choice
2 tablespoons (12 grams/0.42 ounces) of finely chopped, candied orange peel, or the grated zest of one small to medium orange
3 tablespoons (23 grams/0.81 ounce) toasted, finely chopped pistachios
Note - If you want chocolate ricotta filling, add a few tablespoons of dark, unsweetened cocoa powder to the above recipe, and thin it out with a few drops of warm water if too thick to pipe.
DIRECTIONS FOR SHELLS:
1. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer or food processor, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in the oil, vinegar, and enough of the wine to make a soft dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and well blended, about 2 minutes. Shape the dough into a ball. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest in the fridge from 2 hours to overnight.
2. Cut the dough into two pieces. Keep the remaining dough covered while you work. Lightly flour a large cutting or pastry board and roll the dough until super thin, about 1/16 to 1/8” thick (An area of about 13 inches by 18 inches should give you that). Cut out 3 to 5-inch circles (3-inch – small/medium; 4-inch – medium/large; 5-inch;- large. Your choice). Roll the cut out circle into an oval, rolling it larger and thinner if it’s shrunk a little.
3. Oil the outside of the cannoli tubes (You only have to do this once, as the oil from the deep fry will keep them well, uhh, oiled..lol). Roll a dough oval from the long side (If square, position like a diamond, and place tube/form on the corner closest to you, then roll) around each tube/form and dab a little egg white on the dough where the edges overlap. (Avoid getting egg white on the tube, or the pastry will stick to it.) Press well to seal. Set aside to let the egg white seal dry a little.
4. In a deep heavy saucepan, pour enough oil to reach a depth of 3 inches, or if using an electric deep- fryer, follow the manufacturer’s directions. Heat the oil to 375°F (190 °C) on a deep fry thermometer, or until a small piece of the dough or bread cube placed in the oil sizzles and browns in 1 minute. Have ready a tray or sheet pan lined with paper towels or paper bags.
5. Carefully lower a few of the cannoli tubes into the hot oil. Do not crowd the pan. Fry the shells until golden, about 2 minutes, turning them so that they brown evenly.
6. Lift a cannoli tube with a wire skimmer or large slotted spoon, out of the oil. Using tongs, grasp the cannoli tube at one end. Very carefully remove the cannoli tube with the open sides straight up and down so that the oil flows back into the pan. Place the tube on paper towels or bags to drain. Repeat with the remaining tubes. While they are still hot, grasp the tubes with a potholder and pull the cannoli shells off the tubes with a pair of tongs, or with your hand protected by an oven mitt or towel. Let the shells cool completely on the paper towels. Place shells on cooling rack until ready to fill.
7. Repeat making and frying the shells with the remaining dough. If you are reusing the cannoli tubes, let them cool before wrapping them in the dough.
Cannoli shell preparation, cutting out the dough circles, sealing the dough around the form, frying the shells, finished shells ready to fill
Pasta Machine method:
1. Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces. Starting at the middle setting, run one of the pieces of dough through the rollers of a pasta machine. Lightly dust the dough with flour as needed to keep it from sticking. Pass the dough through the machine repeatedly, until you reach the highest or second highest setting. The dough should be about 4 inches wide and thin enough to see your hand through
2. Continue rolling out the remaining dough. If you do not have enough cannoli tubes for all of the dough, lay the pieces of dough on sheets of plastic wrap and keep them covered until you are ready to use them.
3. Roll, cut out and fry the cannoli shells as according to the directions above.
For stacked cannoli:
1. Heat 2-inches of oil in a saucepan or deep sauté pan, to 350-375°F (176 – 190 °C).
2. Cut out desired shapes with cutters or a sharp knife. Deep fry until golden brown and blistered on each side, about 1 – 2 minutes. Remove from oil with wire skimmer or large slotted spoon, then place on paper towels or bags until dry and grease free. If they balloon up in the hot oil, dock them lightly prior to frying. Place on cooling rack until ready to stack with filling.
DIRECTIONS FOR FILLING:
1. Line a strainer with cheesecloth. Place the ricotta in the strainer over a bowl, and cover with plastic wrap and a towel. Weight it down with a heavy can, and let the ricotta drain in the refrigerator for several hours to overnight.
2. In a bowl with electric mixer, beat ricotta until smooth and creamy. Beat in confectioner’s sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and blend until smooth. Transfer to another bowl and stir in chocolate, zest and nuts. Chill until firm.(The filling can be made up to 24 hours prior to filling the shells. Just cover and keep refrigerated).
ASSEMBLE THE CANNOLI:
1. When ready to serve..fill a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch plain or star tip, or a ziplock bag, with the ricotta cream. If using a ziplock bag, cut about 1/2 inch off one corner. Insert the tip in the cannoli shell and squeeze gently until the shell is half filled. Turn the shell and fill the other side. You can also use a teaspoon to do this, although it’s messier and will take longer.
2. Press or dip cannoli in chopped pistachios, grated chocolate/mini chocolate chips, candied fruit or zest into the cream at each end. Dust with confectioner’s sugar and/or drizzles of melted chocolate if desired.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I like sweets. That is kind of a given. But over the years I have noticed that my love of extremely sweet things has started to shift. Things that used to satisfy my sweet tooth now just make it hurt, literally. Maybe my palette is growing up.
That is how I felt after trying the Burnt Sugar Cake from Nancie McDermott’s Southern Cakes, this month’s Cake Slice Bakers selection.
I like the concept of burning sugar to create uniform flavor throughout the cake. It was mesmerizing to watch the pile of sugar turn into a rich amber syrup. Once cooled, the syrup is added both to the cake and the frosting, infusing a richer caramel-y flavor in every bite.
My cake turned out a little on the dry side. It didn’t bake in the specified 20-25 minutes that the recipe stated, so I left them in a little longer, which probably contributed to their dryness.
For me, I got more burnt sugar taste from the frosting than the cake itself. But, as with any frostings made with confectioners’ sugar, it was tooth-achingly sweet. Yet I almost wanted just a little more frosting, just to get more of the burnt sugar flavor.
The one other thing that bothered me about this cake (and this is just being vain) is that my layer of frosting disappeared once I cut into it. I can never seem to get that thick beautiful frosting layer in my cakes. I’m guessing the dryness played a contributing factor. I guess I’ll just have to keep at it. But not with this cake. I don’t think my dentist would be too happy with that.
If you have time, wander over to The Cake Slice Bakers and check out everyone else’s creations. And here is a printable link to the recipe.
Are you tired of pumpkin recipes yet?
No, good. Cause I’m not! And you are about to get two more. Sweet!
This week was a I-need-to-get-through-all-this-pumpkin-before-it-goes-bad week. Taking a page, or two, from Joy the Baker, I was able to finish up all 60 ounces of pumpkin I had.
I honestly love it when I see a recipe that sounds so good that I have to make it right that instant and I magically have all of the ingredients necessary. I love it when the fates align like that. That is how pumpkin pancakes came to be on Sunday morning. And boy, it was a great way to spend a chilly Sunday morning.
Managing to scrap justenough pumpkin left in the cans, I topped off pumpkin-mania with these pumpkin pie bars. The best part about these bars were the butterscotch chips. The not so best part, the crust. But I’d just add more oats next time.
You can never have too many oats in my opinion.
Folks, there is a legitimate pumpkin shortage this year. Blame it on the weather, blame it on poor crops. Blame it on the powers that may be if it’ll make you feel better. There is no going around it that the very sanctity of Thanksgivings in America could be threatened this year.
Is that a little extreme? Yeah…ok…probably.
I think I let my fear of not being able to enjoy all things pumpkin this year lead to me yell into the phone “Get two cans!” while poor Matt was doing a quick grocery store run. In my head I knew “Get two cans!” meant “Get two 15 ounce cans!”. I guess our psychic married powers were on the fritz that day because I was greeted by two 30 ounce cans of pumpkin when I got home that night.
I saw this as a challenge. How many recipes could I get out of 60 ounces of pumpkin? Just typing that out I am amazed at how much pumpkin I have gone through in the past few weeks. That is 3 3/4 pounds of pumpkin!
The original intended purpose of the pumpkin was to make some pumpkin bread for two potlucks my mom was going to. I made two loaves of Martha’s pumpkin, sage, and browned-butter quick bread at first, but as the loaves were already assigned to events which I was not attending, I wasn’t able to taste them. And I always hate when that happens. But I wasn’t worried…I still had 46 ounces of pumkin left! So I whipped up another loaf (this is really one of the simplest quick bread recipes) and was able to savor the sweet yet savory combination of the pumpkin and sage. The browned-butter added another dimension to the bread that you wouldn’t necessarily expect from a quick bread. Another win for Martha.
At that point I was down to 38 ounces of pumpkin. My brother made a request for pumpkin whoopies pies, complete with a link the recipe and a snarky remark on my Facebook page about wanting a shout out. But I probably wouldn’t have been attracted to make these on my own so I’m glad he requested them. Thanks baby brother!
The cookie part of the pies was more like a spiced pumpkin cookie cake and the marshmallow cream filling, while alone was too buttery in my opinion, sandwiched in between two pumpkin cookie cakes lend the perfect amount of sweet. These were some darn good whoopie pies.
Three loaves of pupmkin bread and 20 pumpkin whoppie pies. I’m kind of tired just reading that. But what to do with the remaining 23 ounces of pumkin?
The pumpkin whoopie pie recipe can be found here.
Pumpkin, Sage, and Browned-Butter Quick Bread
Adapted from the November 2009 issue of Martha Stewart
This recipe can make one 9 x 5 inch loaf or eight 2 1/2 x 4 inch loaves.
6 ounces unsalted butter
1/4 cup fresh sage, cut into thin strips
1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup solid-pack pumpkin (from one 15 ounce can)
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
2 large eggs
Preheat the oven to 350 degress and spray the loaf pan with non-stick spray.
Melt the butter over medium-high heat in a medium saucepan. Add the stips of sage to the melted butter and cook until the butter has turned a golden brown, or 5 to 8 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.
In one bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt.
In another bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, sugar, eggs and browned butter with sage.
Add the flour mixture to the liquid mixture and whisk until combined. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for about one hour, until a tester instered into the center comes out clean.
Let cool in pan for about half and hour and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
***Whenever I read or say ‘Iron Cupcake’, the way it sounds in my head is like one of those movie announcers is saying it in a loud booming voice over surround sound. Thus it will be written as IRON CUPCAKE from now on so you can experience the same impending greatness that I hear in my head***
I finally was able to attend my first IRON CUPCAKE challenge in San Francisco last week. As you can probably infer from the name, IRON CUPCAKE is a SF Bay Area meet up group where members bring in mini-cupcakes made using that month’s secret ingredient. All those attending, bakers and non-bakers alike, taste and score the cupcakes based on appearance and taste and then a winner is announced at the end of the evening.
October’s secret ingredient was beer. I had done a stout cupcake awhile back but wanted to try something different this time. A quick search on Epicurious and I found this chocolate stout recipe. I love Epicurious for the ability of readers to comment on the recipes. This one had 300+ positive comments and I quickly got the impression that this would be a winning recipe. I enhanced the flavor by using chocolate stout instead of regular Guiness and I used King Arthur’s double dutch dark cocoa powder (I used this recipe as an excuse to finally order dutch process cocoa powder – the day I recieved 2 pounds of chocolate in the mail was a good one).
Holy crap this cake was good! Heating the beer with butter?! So good! I frosted them with a chocolate stout ganache and a sprinkling of fleur de sel, which was the perfect contrast to the dark chocolate. These mini-cupcakes were just about the cutest things ever.
The tasting itself was a blast. Dinner that night was 22 mini-cupcakes…I had to roll myself home. There were some pretty interseting flavor combinations. Tecate and lime was one of my favorites. There was also a root beer float cupcake with little mini straws in the frosting. So cute and creative! The three cupcakes that receive the highest scores are given prizes, and while mine didn’t place this time around the experience alone was amazing. I’m ready to throw down next month!
Thanks to my mom, my co-worker Aaron and my friend Victor for coming out to support me. If you live in the SF Bay Area and are interested in joining, check out the meet up group here. And if you go, please let me know! I’d love to meet other blogging bakers in the area.
Gettin’ this in right under the line…
I, like so many other DBs, was estatic when I learned that this month’s challenge was going to be French macarons. I’ve only recently jumped on the macaron bandwagon, but its a delicious wagon to be on. And while my history with them has been brief I was more than up to the challenge. So I was naturally heart broken when both of my attempts at making these elusive macarons failed horribly.
I had diligently done my research – aged egg whites, sifted almond flour and powdered sugar, enough time for the piped macarons to rest. But success just wasn’t on the menu with these little suckers. The signature “feet” of a macaron evaded me. They stuck to the Silpat like there was no tomorrow. I couldn’t fill them even if I wanted to. There was nothing pretty about them…I will only subject you to one picture of my failure. Mabye my “macaronage”, the mixing of meringue with the almond and sugar, was flawed. I’ll chalk it up to being a novice macaron baker. Oh, I will make another attempt, don’t you worry. I just need time for the wounds to heal.
The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.
