Paris: A Macaron Class

Hi folks, and happy Wednesday! First off, you may notice that things look a little bit different around here! I feel like I tweak things every few seconds, but I’m systems analyst – I’m always trying to optimize something! First off, other than playing with a few photo changes, you’ll see an improved widget to the right there for finding my latest and most popular posts and for checking out some of the latest comments. Scroll down and you’ll see a button where you can now follow this blog with everyone’s new favorite, Bloglovin’, an improved Instagram widget, an interactive Twitter timeline widget, and keep going and you’ll find buttons and links to a few places I find my inspiration! If you’ve got thoughts or suggestions on other ways I can improve KC Saling | Art & Science, I’d love to hear from you!

Now, onto everyone’s favorite Wednesday activity - food!

For this week’s Recipe of the Week, I want to jump ahead in my virtual tour from Barcelona to Paris to share a slightly modified version of the macaron recipe Scott and I learned at our cooking class! Yes, folks, we managed to squeeze in a cooking class during our short time in Paris and learned how to make the tastiest – and easiest – macarons!

I’ve had two major traveling goals that this hit – taking a cooking class in Paris and learning how to make macarons. La Cuisine had so many great classes that I could have spent a week in Paris, just taking their classes or their culinary tours, but since we had such limited time, it was great to get a sample of what they do. Not to mention that the macarons we made were utterly delicious. If we manage to get back there, I’m definitely signing us up for the market tour and for the croissant class that Karen and Sabrina took after we had to go home to pack the house. In the meantime, I’d just like to share what we made with you and hopefully I’ll be able to make it again soon! Enjoy

Almond Macarons with Pistachio Filling

What you’ll need for the Macarons:

• About 3 1/2 cups ground almonds*
• About 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• About 1/2 cup egg whites
• About 3 cups sugar
• About 1/2 cup mineral water
• About 1/2 cup egg whites* {separate from the other egg whites because these are for the meringue}

*Ingredients are “about” because I converted them from metric measurements to U.S. measurements. And if you’re looking for a way to do that yourself, if your grandmother’s recipes are in metric units like mine, try this site out.

What you’ll need for the filling:

• About 3 cups grated white chocolate
• About 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
• About 6 tbsp butter at room temperature
• About 4 tbsp pistachio paste

How to make them:

We were lucky because our ingredients were all prepared and sorted, ready for us to use. It’s fun to feel like a professional TV chef every now and then – it takes a lot of prep to make cooking look that easy! Anyway, I’m going to try to walk you back through what we did, and not just what the recipe instructions say to do!

1. Sift the ground almonds and powered sugar together into a large bowl. Whip in the egg whites and any food coloring you want to use {clearly, we chose purple}. This is the almond mixture that you’re going to mix your meringue into.
2. Let’s make the meringue. Mix the sugar and water together in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil. Cook until your candy thermometer reaches 118C or 245F. For God’s sake, don’t spill any on yourself.
3. If you’ve got a mixer, start beating the meringue egg whites in it until they’re nice and fluffy. Once your sugar-water mix has reached 118C, remove it from the heat and pour it carefully into the egg whites and continue mixing until you can place your hands on the bottom of the mixer’s bowl and feel warmth, not heat. Hint: wait a while before doing this!
4. Take the meringue and fold it with a soft spatula into the almond mixture. You want this to be a gentle blend.
5. Put the mixture into a pastry bag with a tip of at least 10mm.
6. Put parchment paper down on a baking sheet, and squeeze the mixture onto the parchment paper until it forms small circles, maybe 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Make sure you give them plenty of space. Let these rest on the baking sheet for 15-30 minutes, or stash them in the fridge for about 10 minutes to speed up the setting process.
7. Bake at 160C or 320F for about 12 minutes. The cookies shouldn’t necessarily be solid when you pull them out, but they should move as one piece when you jiggle them {if you jiggle one and the top moves but the bottom doesn’t, it’s not done yet}.
8. Let them cool on a cooling rack and then gently slide them off the paper. Start pairing them up to make sandwich cookies!
9. For the filling, start by bringing the cream to a boil in a small sauce pan. When it’s nice and hot, pour it over the white chocolate and stir until the white chocolate is nicely mixed in.
10. Add the butter and the pistachio paste, and mix in thoroughly. The filling should be shiny when you’re done.
11. Pour into a piping bag and let cool completely until the texture is creamy. You can also stash this in the fridge for a while, but you don’t get the even consistency when you do that.
12. Pipe the filling onto one set of the paired cookies and sandwich them together.
13. Eat. Maybe leave enough for friends. Maybe not. You can always share this recipe if they’re not lucky enough to try it {Sabrina? Karen? Still friends, right? Love ya!}

The hubby was in on the action, too! Here he is, mixing like a champ!

Hope you enjoy this little taste of our adventures in Paris!

KCS

For more on Paris, try:

A Macaron Class | A Whirlwind Day in the City of Lights (coming soon!) | Disneyland Paris (coming soon!)