French Macarons - Four Ways

It was Christmas Eve day and I decided to have

a little fun in the kitchen, trying to make 

French Macarons

for the first time since our class in Paris

over a year ago.

I am sure I was inspired by our trip to Paris and Germany

where we taste tested many of them.

I had the morning free, and I had purchased the

almond flour some time before from Costco,

where it is more reasonably priced than at

the grocery store, so I decided to give it a try.

(I admit I had been a bit of a chicken, even though

we had all successfully made them in class.)

Click here for the tutorial, giving step by

step instructions.

I wanted to make more than one color,

and more than one flavor, so I deviated

from the above tutorial slightly, in 

that I folded the egg white meringue in

before adding any coloring, then I divided

the batter into three bowls.  Color was added

to the bowls, and the final 50 stirs were done

after coloring was added.  For the pink I used

a powdered food coloring that I had purchased

in Paris at our class, for the green I used gel

food coloring (Americolor in a squeeze bottle - my

personal preference as it doesn't dry out), and

for the white, I left it uncolored.  I felt the gel

food coloring worked just as well as the powdered,

and it is more readily available.

Then I made one batch of buttercream frosting

and divided it into four bowls, one vanilla,

using clear vanilla flavoring, one peppermint, using

creme de menthe flavoring, one key lime, and one almond.

The macarons were decorated prior to baking.  I only had

one failure, and that was that I sprinkled some crushed

peppermint candy on top of the unbaked macarons,

and there was a chemical reaction while baking that 

caused the area where I sprinkled the candy on to

rise up and create an ugly mound - (think surface of

the moon!) so those were taste

testers for hubby!

The almond was generally everyone's favorite,

but I loved all four flavors. 

Refrigerate them and they are even better the next day.

They were a lovely addition to our Christmas Eve

meal and we had some left for the next day.  

The recipe made around 40 - 45.

And yes, I did measure everything out on my 

kitchen scale in grams, and that was easy.

I had also purchased a special silpat baking liner

in Paris that had macaron circles on it, but I

felt they were a little close and some ended up

touching as they baked.  I also had some new

silpat type liners that I had purchased from

Costco.  My old worn, original Silpat brand

worked the best, as they all stuck a little to the

new sheets, but on my old Silpat they came right

off.  I don't know if that was because that was

more seasoned (if that happens with a Silpat,)

or if it was because it was a true Silpat liner,

but it definitely was the best.

So glad I gave them a try.  We will be making a lot

more of these, now that I feel confident to do them,

and I already have people asking me to teach them.

We will have to do a ladies' lunch and teach

French Macarons.