Earl Grey Macarons

So since Jason got me the other most-wanted item in my life (besides the Death Star), I have decided to step up my baking to the next level. Because what's the point in having a stand mixer if you don't use it for all its worth? For the Chemistry department party, I made some peppermint meringues, which turned out great, but for a real challenge I decided to try my hand at making macarons.

(Note: I did not make these ones; For illustration purposes only!)

In case you have never heard of these marvelous confections, they are basically a fancy French version of an Oreo or whoopie pie. The cookie part is meringue-based, but also contains almond flour to give it more substance. The filling can be ganache, jam, preserves, or whatever you want! For my macarons, I decided to attempt to replicate some that I had in Paris - Earl Grey tea flavored!

The recipe I found online calls for using a food processor to mix the dried tea leaves and the dry ingredients together, but I decided that a mortar and pestle would do a better job.

Grinding the tea! 

                                                     

After the tea was all ground up, I added it to the almond flour and powdered sugar, and sifted that mixture through a sieve to get rid of any big pieces of tea that were left over. The almond flour ended up being a pain, because there were small chunks of almond that were slightly too big for the mesh. I ended up transferring those parts back to the mortar and pestle and grinding them down so they would fit! 

Next up: The meringue base. And the star of the show, my brand new stand mixer!! Isn't she a beauty?

After whipping up the meringue to a stiff-peak stage, the almond/tea/sugar mixture was folded in, and the batter was transferred to a gallon ziploc for piping. To get the right size circles I traced around a spice jar cap on the back of my parchment paper to give me a guide. 

At this point I was a bit concerned, as the shells were rather flat compared to pictures I had seen online of maracons being prepared. I think the problem was that I did not whip the meringue for long enough to get to stiff peaks, and ended up using soft peak stage instead.

However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that they actually developed the characteristic look of real macarons! Hooray!! Look at those pretty feet (the name for the rough part around the bottom of the cookie). About half of them ended up cracking due to the centers being too dense and not cooking perfectly, but they still taste delicious.

I made a white chocolate filling and piped it onto half the cookies, then matched similar sized tops to get the final product:

For my first attempt at a tricky recipe, I think it went pretty well! 

Bonus: I also made some fantastic hamburgers for dinner. My boss's wife's family has a farm, so we got a few pounds of farm fresh grass-fed ground beef from them at our Christmas party. 

Delicious!!