Being a lazy old sunday I was feeling inspired and so took up my apron and into the kitchen I went! Now having mastered the art of cake baking (if not too bold to say) and having made many a batch of biscuits I felt like making something a little different and after a little scouring found the perfect recipe for macaroons! I say perfect, having never made these little delights before my only guide for the 'perfect' recipe was having all the ingredients in the house and lo and behold the delicious magazine's recipe for multicoloured macaroons had exactly this. In all honesty in the heat of the moment I may have become a little over-ambitious rooting out all my colours and flavourings and deciding to double and then split the mixture between four bowls creating peppermint, strawberry, lemon and chocolate flavours with a simple whipped cream filling. The filling, I might add, was about as simple as got. Having only 150g of ground almonds in my cupboard I blitzed up some chopped almonds to create the create quantity. Under normal circumstances this would have worked however macaroons require a smooth glossy batter and no amount of whizzing and sifting could combat the bitty texture of the almonds. So, Tip No. 1 of macaroon making ground almonds really do work best. The next issue I faced was with my peppermint macaroons I believe this may have been down to my sheer excitement causing me to be a little heavy handed with the flavourings which caused my batter to split, this had the effect of making it far too runny and spreading all over my oven, oops! So into the bin that went! But it wasn't all too bad, my strawberry and creams using the same base batter worked out fairly well. Giving them a good old bash (not to be forgotten as I did with the first) meant the had a wonderful glossiness and the desired foot to sandwhich just enough cream to make them a real delight. Although they were a little more chewy than expected, and here I must admit that i couldn't wait long enough to allow them to cool and get that perfect bite, they went down a treat and of my batch of 10 only 2 are left! I plan to master the art of chocolate macroons (everyone's favourite) and can only pray they come out a little better than these. Regardless, for a first time macarooner this recipe was brilliantly simple and easy to follow I recommend it to anyone who's shyed away from these love French fancies!
