Look at those feet – my first daring bakers challenge

Macarons with vanilla and ginger creme filling

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.

This was my first official daring bakers challenge. I managed two attempts at this challenge. The first one was with my mother in law, where I took a range of my baking toys up to her house and we made puff pastry and the macarons. It was the first time either of us had made them so we were really pleased when they turned out.

Plain macarons with a cremecheese and fresh lime filling (made with Angie)

Lesson’s learnt

• Double baking teflon sheets works a lot better than baking paper. We had one batch on the paper and the other on sheets, they came off the sheets a lot better.
• Both batches used aged egg whites, I think this helped in the success of nice feet
• I need to pipe better to make a flat biscuit instead of the points
• I need to use a smaller sieve for the flour and sugar to limit the lumps
• I don’t actually like the taste of macarons

The last point is actually interesting… The first batch I found interesting and the next batch I decided I didn’t really like the almond flour flavour. Andrew isn’t a fan either. I found many workmates loved the biscuits this morning so at least they went to an appreciative tummy.