JOIN USFor macarons that melt in the mouth
Keep yourself calm, yet alert,” says Ruhee Bhimani, founder, Cocoa Cottage, Mumbai, to a room full of home bakers.
“While you may be good to the macarons, they might not be good to you.” To hear a warning like that at the beginning of our eggless French macaron class was certainly off-putting. But we had our eyes on the prize: pastel-coloured cookies that promised to taste as good as they looked. So, with spatulas, bowls and stand mixers in place, we dove headfirst into the world of macarons.
Macarons – pastel cookies that are crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside – are the burgers of the dessert world. The birth of these meringue-based sandwich cookies is attributed to Catherine de Medici and her team of Italian chefs that she brought with her after getting married to King Henry II of France. Initially, macarons were simple cookies made of almond meal, sugar and eggs. The mini flattened globe version you see today is the result of many years of experiments.
Before we settle down at our cooking stations, Ruhee asks us if we can differentiate between macarons and macaroons. While I assumed they are just different names for the same thing, a few of my fellow bakers told me otherwise. While macarons are meringue-based, sandwiched cookies, macaroons are coconut-based and are much sweeter. The dessert chef went on list the ingredients to make macarons: almond flour, egg whites and caster sugar.
I was surprised that all it took was three ingredients to whip up something so delectable. But I was yet to learn that getting the procedure right is nothing short of a baking feat.
No eggs needed
Baking and eggs are inseparable. Eggs are, after all, the reason our cakes rise gloriously and meringue glazes taste so rich. But in this class, Ruhee suggested we ditch the eggs. It’s like killing the hero right in the beginning of the movie, before he even gets a chance to romance the heroine (in this case, the almond flour) or engage in a row with the villain (sugar).
We replaced the hero of this dish with a vegan alternative, a kitchen staple in fact. You know how you boil chickpeas for chole and throw the remaining water away? Turns out, that water can be the vegetarian equivalent of eggs while baking. Called aquafaba, this legume water has about one-tenth of the protein content of an egg. An easier way to get this would be to strain the liquid from a can of preserved chickpeas.
We first added aquafaba to a stand mixer and then caster sugar in phases. “Don’t stop beating the mixture till you see soft peaks. The mixture shouldn’t move even if you upturn the bowl,” instructed Ruhee.
After what seemed like an eternity in beating the mixture, we saw the glorious white peaks and added half the sifted almond flour to it.
Whip them just right
Pat came another warning, “Cut and fold the flour into the mixture till there are no lumps. But ensure you don’t over or under beat it, as both can spell doom for your macarons,” said Ruhee, as she added blue food colouring agent to the batter.
Once we finished cutting and folding the batter, Ruhee told us to get piping immediately as the batter is sensitive to heat. As I piped my batter onto a silicon baking mat, she straightened my hand, explaining how important it is to hold the pipe exactly at 90 degrees to the mat. “They will turn lopsided otherwise,” she said.
We finished piping our macarons, some small, some big and some overflowing, and then prepared to tap the mat on a flat surface to get all the air bubbles out. If you don’t, the trapped air pockets in your batter will burst while baking, we were told. Once the tapping was done, we were instructed to let the macarons to dry for at least 15-20 minutes, until they settled down in a macaron shape and their tops were a little dry. After that, it was time to put them in the oven.
Pick a flavour
Nothing is easy when it comes to macarons. So, even while baking, you need to make sure you bake them at a steady temperature and regularly shift the baking mat so that they cook evenly on all sides. As our first batch came out of the oven, we could see gloriously orange macarons with shiny and smooth tops, perfectly formed feet (frills around the edges) and a cooked base. It seemed the macarons decided to be good to us after all.
Once the macarons cooled down, we focused on the filling aka ganache. As we heated cream and chocolate, the standard base for a ganache, we had some difficult choices to make: what flavours should we settle on?
Finally, we got four: salted chocolate, orange-chocolate, Nutella and masala chai. Let your imagination run wild when it comes to macaron shells too. Raspberry, chocolate, lemon, pistachio, matcha, rose, hazelnut, passion fruit, salted caramel...the list is endless.
One of my biggest takeaways from this class was that macarons are hard. They have outlandish demands and are highly uncooperative. You might play by every rule in the book while baking them, but they will still refuse to behave. But what’s baking if not for some disastrous but delicious mistakes? So, just like us, keep your eyes on the prize. I am sure the macarons will treat you just fine.
Things to remember
Macarons, as Ruhee put it, are ‘finicky cookies.’ So, expect to have a number of hits and misses before you get a handle on them. But, here are some helpful pointers to keep in mind:
Temperature is a matter of life and death for macarons.
“Always work in an air-conditioned room while making macarons,” says Ruhee.
If your macarons burst while baking, it’s either because your oven was too hot or you haven’t tapped enough or your cutting and folding technique was bad.
Our batch of macarons didn’t have the shiny and smooth tops as others, which meant we hadn’t piped properly. Remember the 90 degree piping rule.
If your macarons don’t develop ‘feet’, it’s either because the oven isn’t hot enough or you have left them resting for too long.
When you cook macarons for a short time on a high-temperature oven, they will turn out hollow.
When it comes to adding colour to your macaron, there are two ways: one, add colour to your batter while cutting and folding. Or, if you love drama in your food, squeeze some colour of your choice in the end of your piping bag before adding the filling. With a swirl of your filling, a new shade of your colour will shine on the tray.