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Happy Feet


Macarons? That's something I had written off as "not in this lifetime" recipe after two failures in the past year. But then daring bakers came up with macarons as the October challenge. Partly because you can't miss two challenges in a row, and possibly because I just finished reading Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, I had visions of Lisa and Ivonne in full regalia pointing at me. "You there, you are banished from the daring bakers kingdom forever".

So I dutifully aged one egg white for two days, ground some almonds and sifted them with icing sugar. The next part is tough. You beat the egg white to stiff peaks and then fold in the almond/sugar combo. Practically every possibility - underfolding, overfolding, even breathing - can result in your macarons coming out flat and without the coveted "feet".

Macaron gods must be looking over me this morning for when I looked in 2 minutes before end of baking time, my plain vanilla macarons had developed at least some skirts around them if not real feet. They did stick to the parchment though. Here's where our macaron guru Helen comes to rescue. She always says to sprinkle a drop of water below the parchment and the macarons come out clean.

I sandwiched them with some ganache (equal quantities of cream and dark chocolate melted in the microwave) and now I'm off to heaven to celebrate. I think it must be the sugar rush.

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.

Comments

suvi said…
love that title! I've never made macarons and don't plan to either. Just too intimidated by those feet.
Priya Suresh said…
Macarons looks pretty dear!
kitchen queen said…
You have a nice blog.You can visit my blog and give ur comments.
CurryLeaf said…
Looks lovely,I have given them up even before attempting.Hows the 'Lost symbol'. Did you get Bread Alone,I am yet to see it here!
prasu said…
Macarons are lovely and yummy....
notyet100 said…
drooling here,..;-)
Suganya said…
Looks so good. Nice try. YUM!
Rachel said…
very elegant looking macarons.
Parita said…
Macs have come out perfect!
Bharti said…
Congrats...that's some feat you pulled off (pun intended)!
AWESOME! You got feet! Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice!
Kanchan said…
Macarons...Macarons everywhere :)

Love to watch the Daring bakers more so for wonderful snaps around.

BTW, Congrats dear!! I have shared “The Presentation Award” with your wonderfully presented blog, Please drop by my blog to collect it!

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