Macaroons

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO GET RID OF THIS GINORMOUS GAP?! Will pay in baked goods.

My parents have abandoned me this weekend to visit some family friends, leaving me with only three dogs and a baking cupboard full of supplies. I suppose being home alone means i'm supposed to secretly throw some sort of crazy party. However, i'd simply rather just bake. So bake I did.

I've been attempting to master macaroons for a fair time now, however no attempts thus far have been bloggable. So when I spotted a recipe in this month's edition of Woman & Home's Feel Good Food, it just had to be the one I dedicated my home alone time to.

The recipe makes about 30 macaroons, half with a salted caramel filling and half with a pistachio buttercream. 

Ingredients:

3 large egg whites

65g granulated sugar 

2 drops vanilla extract

150g icing sugar, sifted (MUST be sifted)

85g ground almonds 

For the salted caramel filling:

225g dulce de leche or Carnation Caramel

1/2 tsp sea salt

For the pistachio buttercream:

50g unsalted butter

85g icing sugar

50g ground pistachios

2 drops green food colouring (optional)

2tbsp milk

Method:

Whisk the egg whites with an electric whisk until stiff. Add the granulated sugar in two batches, whisking between each addition. Add the vanilla, whisk until stiff. 

Add the icing sugar to the almonds and sift half into the egg whites. Fold in with a spatula, then sift in the rest of the mixture and fold in, until the mixture is glossy and drops off the spatula when lifted. 

Transfer to a piping bag and pipe 3cm diameter circles leaving gaps between them. (It helps to draw out the circles on the baking parchment first.) Rap the bottom of the trays sharply on the kitchen surface, then rest somewhere to dry for one hour. Do NOT put them in the fridge. 

For the fillings, combine the dulce de leche/Carnation Caramel with the salt, then transfer to a piping bag and rest in the fridge. Beat together the pistachio buttercream ingredients and then add the food colouring. (When I first added my colouring I regretted it as it immediately became bright green, but it actually looks great when sandwiched between the macaroon shells!) 

Heat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius (170 fan). When the macaroons have hardened and their shells are no longer sticky to the touch, place in the middle of the oven on top of a second tray to protect their bottoms from burning. Cook the macaroons for 10 to 12 minutes. They should have risen and be glossy on top, with a bubbled rim on the bottom known as the "foot." Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before removing from the baking parchment. 

Fill half the macaroons with caramel and half with the buttercream. They're best served on the day they are made, but will keep for 3 days in an airtight container. 

If you've never made macaroons before I urge you to try this recipe. It was really super simple. Next time I think i'll make the caramel myself and beat it into a buttercream; I don't like the taste of Carnation Caramel very much! 

Happy baking! :)