Baking Spell

Since I've come home, I've been hit with a cooking bug. All I ever want to do right now is cook. Sort of true. Maybe because I was missing my sewing machine.. regardless, I've taking on cooking right now, and it's fantastic!

Meringues, are so fluffy and yummy. I never knew that they're actually super simple and easy to make! I always thought they're supposed to be so difficult and challenging, but no. So simple! To me, they fall into a category that macarons also fall into. They're both light, crunchy, and uses egg whites.

Anyway, baking is such a time buster. It's good for a boring day, it makes it, well, less boring.

Meringues
- 3 egg whites
- 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar (which is basically regular sugar)
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 spoons
- electrical mixer

First, preheat your oven to 200 F.

Take your eggs and put it into a large bowl. Use your electric mixer and whisk it on low speed until it becomes frothy. (Frothy meaning extremely bubbly and foam-like)

Then, you add your cream of tartar and continue to whisk. Whisk until it makes soft peaks (What do you mean soft peaks? Well, until it doesn't quite look like egg whites anymore).

Add some sugar (not all of it) and mix. Add more sugar and mix. And continue to do so until all the sugar is gone.

Now you turn your mixer on higher and whisk and whisk and whisk. Until they hold hard peaks. (Soft peaks and now hard peaks? Hard peaks meaning they look like little mountains if you try to make little mountains. Soft peaks are kind of like little mountains that can't stand still) and if you take some of the mix and rub between your index and thumb, it's smooth and you can't feel the sugar bits.

Got your hard peaks? Time to take your two spoons and put it on your cookie sheet. But wait! Before you do that, line your sheet with parchment paper. Now, take one spoon and make a little lump on your sheet. Use the other spoon to help get it off the spoon. You might want to take a chopstick (or something like that) and make a swirl on the lump to make it look pretty.

As soon as you're done that, put it in the oven for 1 hour and 45 minutes. Rotate halfway through to ensure even baking.

Finished

Sugary happiness.

Still not bad for another first time try right?

Très Français, Non?

Ok, so what's very french? Me? I wish. But, I'll be faux French just for a bit. How am I possibly going to achieve that? By attempting to make the very delicious Parisian Macarons.

As promised, I'm providing a step-by-step with pictures that I did to make my very first ever batch of macarons. I've always heard that they're hard and has a high failure rate, but I did it, and boy, are they ever yummy!

Macarons

- 4 egg whites
- 200 grams cup icing sugar
- 110 grams ground almond
- 2 tbs granulated sugar (aka regular sugar)

Before you do anything, take your egg whites and 'age' them overnight. Then, go to sleep.

Next day, begin by preheating your oven to 300F. Take your egg whites and whisk them on low speed with your electric mixer until foamy. Then add your 2 tbs of sugar slowly. 

Until your mixture looks like that. Kind of meringue-like and whipped cream-like. Can you believe that's from egg whites and sugar?

Take your ground almond out, and measure 110 grams on a scale. Put it in a bowl. Then measure 200 grams of icing sugar and put it in the bowl with the ground almonds. 

Get a spoon and mix it together, and make sure it's nicely powdery and loose. No chunks of ground almond sticking together. Done? 

Then, you add it to your whipped cream-like egg whites and fold with a spatula. It should look evenly mixed and kind of grainy and sandy-ish (because of the ground almonds)

Take out a cookie sheet and parchment paper, and measure your parchment paper to fit perfectly to your sheet. Get a pastry bag and tip and squeeze small circles on your sheet. (I didn't have the right tip, so mine were a little big)

Set your oven to 300F and bake for 20 minutes. Let it cool for a white. Then, you put filling in the middle on one shell and place another on top... like a sandwich! 

And voilà! Your macarons are ready! I used blackberry jam, strawberry jam and nutella as filling. My macarons came out a bit nutty, so I personally prefer the nutella filling, but the jams make it more dessert-like. 

Success to me! I was actually very scared that it wouldn't work, but considering this was my first time, I quite like the results. I didn't get to make my own filling because I was running out of eggs (I made meringues the night before). But throughout the summer, I will be experimenting with these tasty treats and tweaking them a little bit, and trying different flavours.. exciting right? 

Try them yourself. It's really fun. 

And super yummy! 

Enjoy and bonne chance!