The Romantic Macaroons (part 1)...

Oh no, not because of Valentine's Day... I don't ever remember celebrating that day to be honest. Even when I was with someone, I never marked the occasion. It also didn't help that I have horrible memory and don't remember things like birthdays and anniversaries (yes, women can forget them too!)... No, the romantic refers to the conditions I was forced to bake in yesterday afternoon. You see, the fluorescent light in our kitchen decided to morph into a disco light, flickering on and off at annoyingly short intervals so it was given a rest. I ended up bringing my bed side lamp over so I could make out the egg whites from the yolks! So you will have to excuse the horrible lighting in the pictures. I fouind this one quite pretty and romantic actually, so there's your Valentine's Day present from me:

Notice the lamp and wires in the background. How very unprofessional! Anyway. Why was I making macarons anyway?? Aah yes, efficiency. I had an egg white left over from another recipe and some yummy ground pistachios from Turkey that I was saving for a special occasion. There was just enough pistachios for the one egg white and since I wasn't sure if I could get it right the first time, I figured I'll try a small batch. I guess that makes it a practical recipe actually, you can just multiply the quantities if you want to make more. I based my macaroons on a recipe I found in a Turkish blog, but ended up playing around with it a little bit, so I'll give you the measurements as I used them.

Ingredients

1 egg white (at room temperature)
50 gr. confectionary sugar
50 gr. ground pistachios
2 1/2 tbsp granular sugar (as in, regular sugar)

A useful piece of information here: eggs separate best when they are cold, so you can keep the egg whites covered in a little bowl until you are ready to use them. Place the confectionary sugar and ground pistachios (or almonds if you like) in a food processor and pulse them a few times until they are really thin and combined. This stage is important because apparently the confectionary sugar absorbs the moistness of the pistachios when they are pulsed together and you need them to be dry and lump free. In fact, most of the stages in this recipe are important because macarons are one of those delicate cookies that are not for the faint hearted.

In a separate bowl (do try and use a very clean glass or steel bowl as plastic bowls tend to have residual grease stuck to them and that, my friends, is a big no no for whipping egg whites properly), whip the egg white until soft peaks form. How do I know what soft peaks are, you say? When the egg white is no longer frothy, but looks more like cream, stop the whipping for a minute, take a teaspoon and dip it in and pull it out. If the batter comes up with the teaspoon to form a peak, but falls back a little later, then you have achieved soft peaks. Add the regular sugar slowly (about half a tablespoon at a time) and whip until you get stiff peaks (same test as before, peaks should keep their shape after teaspoon comes out).

Once you have the egg whites at the right stage, add in the dry ingredients you prepared earlier. Using a spatula or a wooden spoon, combine them until you get the green goop in the previous picture.

...And that's it for today! Sorry to do this, but Shabbat will be coming in soon and macarons can wait until nightfall. Plenty more coming up next week though-at least 2 other recipes and more updates from my life. Stay tuned...