I did it!!!

I have been trying for quite some time to cook the perfect batch of macarons and after spending a good portion of Saturday making them I finally did it! 

I knew they were difficult to make and have been 'practicing' for quite some time.  There are not many ingredients but each step is critical to getting them just right. 

There are HEAPS of things that you should and shouldn't do to make them work - don't over cook your sugar, don't over fold the mixture, make sure you sift the almond meal x3 before measuring out to make sure there are no ugly lumps and the crust is smooth, make sure the almond meal and icing mixture is well combined, use a circle template to help you to get them all even in size, allow them to 'set' for 30 mins to form a crust before putting into the oven, put them onto a damp bench when taking them out of the oven ...the list goes on and on but finally on Saturday I got them perfect.  They rose well and all had 'feet' at the base (the bubbling/cracking at the edge where it has sat on the baking paper).  The outside was crisp and the centre soft and chewy.

Do you want to know my secret?  Instead of piping them out I used two teaspoons and as I offloaded the mixture with one teaspoon I twisted the other to encourage it to go into a circle.  Not perfect but it worked for me :)

Does anyone else have any good tips for making macarons?

Macaroon Goodness

After reading about the delicious macaroons you can find at the Lindt Chocolate Cafe stores on Toni’s blog I figured we couldn’t visit Melbourne without tracking down a store. While we were there we bumped into some friends from Tasmania that were in Melbourne to visit the temple and taking advantage of the shopping. They had also stopped by the café to taste the macaroons.





I could resist so I splurged and got just about 1 of every type, Don’t worry I didn’t eat them all myself, we cut them up and shared them amongst the three of us, so that all of us could taste some of the macaroon goodness (As well as share the calories).

The Verdict: We thought the hazelnut flavoured macaroon was the best followed by the passionfruit, but all were really good and strong in flavour. While there I also had an absolutely amazing ice chocolate mmmmmmmmmmmm soooooo good!