Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Pistachio Macarons

pistachio-milkchocolate-macaron

Here's my first macaron "failure", and it's really just due to the filling. I was going for a simple ganache, but got too lazy and didn't look up a proper recipe. I just winged it - I used about 200 g milk chocolate and 100 g of cream, and as you can see, that wasn't great. Next time, I'll add 100 g of dark chocolate, both to stabilize and to make it a bit less sweet. However, this was delicious, even if it wasn't very pretty.

Pistachio Macarons
(printable recipe)
about 20

3 egg whites, at room temperature
2 tbsp caster sugar (or in my case, homemade vanilla sugar)
200 g powdered sugar
110 g pistachios
green gel (or powder) food coloring

Combine powdered sugar and pistachios in your food processor, and grind until very fine. Sieve. Re-grind any lumps or big pieces of pistachios. Mix carefully (they tend to separate a little bit when sieving, since the sugar falls through first.)

Beat egg whites and sugar until you have a thick, glossy meringue. Don't overbeat. Stir in the pistachio-sugar powder, and food coloring if you'd like, and fold together. Don't overmix this - most seem to say that you should use less than 50 strokes. (You can try it by dolloping a little batter on a baking sheet - if the peak falls down, it's ready. If it doesn't, try a few more strokes.)

Pipe small rounds on a baking sheet with baking paper. If you'd like, sprinkle some extra ground pistachios on half of them. Leave at room temperature for 30-60 minutes, to form a skin.

Bake at 150°C for 15-20 minutes. (I have a convection oven, and 15 minutes was perfect for me.) Let them cool completely before filling. Unused shells can be frozen, or kept in an air-tight container for a day or so.

Recipe in Swedish:
Pistagemacarons

5 comments:

Paris Pastry said...

The filling may have failed but the cookies look great!
Great blog!

Jessica said...

The macarons are turning out prettier and prettier :). What made you find them so fascinating?

Anne said...

Jessika - I'm really just staggering the posts :) I made pretty much all batches in one week, right before the christening. The fascination with this cookie lies in the variations, and also in that so many things can go wrong. I was eager to see if I could do it! And well, I happen to love the nutty-chewiness, it's definitely my kind of sweet :)

Pity said...

well done! i have never dare to make these, but am seriously starting to think about it,yours look sooooo delicious!

cheers from london,

pity

onemorehandbag said...

I think they look very "sexy" BECAUSE of the runny filling!