French Meringue Macaron

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The French Meringue Macaron

This method is called French meringue, simply because French meringue is a main ingredient in this recipe. Unlike the Italian meringue, you don't have to cook any sugar in this recipe.

This method is a little easier to make than the Italian meringue method, but no less elegant.The ground almonds keep it chewy on the inside and the meringue perfects the crispy outside of this cookie.

Your Mise' En Place'
Make sure you have these tools on hand to get started.

Tips for Preparation

These are quick tips for this easy recipe.
After making your own macarons, you will never pay somebody $30 for a dozen macarons again.

Prep Work

Granulated sugar, egg whites, almond flour and powdered sugar.

For convenience, I like to scale out my ingredients the day before. This recipe requires only four ingredients.

Making your tant pour tant

Tips for Step 1

Tant pour tant is the mixture of your almond meal and powdered sugar sifted together.

It is named as such, because it represents a preparation process, as this mixture can be made ahead of time, and set aside for future uses, it needed some identification.

Tant pour tant is the mixture of sifted almond flour and powdered sugar.

In someone's ancient pastry shop somebody came up with this name because they had to have some kind of name to identify this pre-made ingredient that is found in a variety of pastry recipes.

Did you know you can make your own almond flour?

Nut Flours

Dealing with the Egg Whites

Tips for Steps 2 thru 3

Always whip the egg whites till foamy before adding the cream of tartar. You can also sprinkle 1/3 of the sugar in at this time, too.

Foamy egg whites.

When adding the sugar in Step 3, make sure to add the sugar slowly. Sprinkle it in. The purpose is to make sure the sugar dissolves completely. You don't want a grainy meringue. It must be a smooth consistency.

Adding Color

Tips for Step 4

Just before the whipped egg whites become stiffed peaked, is when you want to add color.

The mass will began to look smooth, and may form a soft peak and that is a good time to add your food coloring.

Use gel food coloring and a toothpick as your tool. Now you can relax and allow the egg whites to whip until they hold a stiff peak.

Because this recipe yields approximately 36 individual cookies, totaling 18 macaron sandwiches , you can have a little fun and make 2 different macaron colors. This will give you two different flavors for your filling options. Like pink for strawberry, or green for pistachio. Buttercream and ganache are a traditional fillings for macaron sandwich cookies.

If you decide to have two colors, whip the meringue to stiff peaked FIRST before dividing the meringue in half. Then add the color as necessary.

Because the meringue is divided, you will now need to evenly divide the almond
flour/powdered sugar mixture, BY WEIGHT ONLY. (get your scale out) Divide the meringue by weighing it as well.

An example would be : the weight of the tant pour tant, in this recipe is 10.4 ounces.

That means you need 5.2 ounces of the tant pour tant, per color.

The Folding

Tips for Step 5

Add one third of the dry ingredients into the meringue, using your spatula fold it in to incorporate. It's incorporated when you no longer see evidence of the flour mixture.

To do this:
Scrape from the bottom and sides of the bowl and fold the contents over the top. Pressing the batter sometimes against the bowl with the spatula, smoothing out the bumps of flour meringue mixture on the sides of the bowl. Fold that into the center of the batter.

Once incorporated, add the remaining almond flour and confectioner's sugar mixture at once. Continue to fold the ingredients until it began. This process is called the macaronage, the perfect balance of not over folding, and not under folding your batter. Blending the ingredients together, while maintaining volume can be a tricky business, so be gentle with your folding.

The Piping

Tips for Step 6 and 7

To get a petite 1" round macaron, use a 1/2' round pastry tip. The batter will spread a little, so don't pipe too much batter out.

To get that finished 1" cookie, you have to make sure to not pipe out too much batter. Due to this spreading, don't pipe too close together. The batter won't need much pressure, when piping. You'll find it flowing out much on its own. You just control the flow.

Tap the cookie sheet light on your counter, to tap out the little air bubbles. Allow the cookie batter to sit on the counter for about a half hour to an hour, to dry the surface of the cookie.

If you look at the picture above, you can see that these cookies are going to be a little bigger than those petite 1' sized cookies. I piped out a little too much batter. Sometimes I like big macarons when I just want the cookie unsandwiched. You can always use a template to not only get the size you want, but you'll ensure uniformity of your cookies.

Let's Bake !

Tips for Step 8

Bake on the middle rack. Your heat should be no higher than 325°F. It's a perfect temperature.
Bake only one sheet at a time.

Know your oven's hot spots, so rotate the sheet pan as necessary. Remove from the oven, and allow to cool completely. When removing the macarons, you'll have to first flip them over, with the parchment side facing up. Then peel the parchment from the macaron. If you pull the macaron from the parchment paper, you could risk breaking the cookie apart. Instead, pull the paper gently from the macarons.

We Love Them Filled

The Macaron Sandwich

Align your cookies assembly line fashion, with the bottom sides up.

Fill your pastry bag with your favorite filling and pipe half of the cookies, then place the other cookie on top, to make your cookie sandwich.

The French Meringue Macaron

Follow the recipe and instructions below for making French macarons.

The French Meringue Macaron

Yield: 3 dozen cookies, or 16 sandwiches.

Tip:
Click here for "Making Almond Flour"

Ingredients all scaled and measured.

Ingredient	Amounts
Egg whites	3
Granulated sugar	1/4 cup
Powdered sugar	1 2/3 cup
Almond flour	1 cup

Procedure

Step 1
Making your tant pour tant.
Pulsate the almond powder and powdered sugar in a food processor a few times.
Sift the almond meal and powdered sugar together.
Set aside.

Step 2
Place egg whites in mixing bowl.
Whip eggs till foamy.
On low, add the cream of tartar, and sprinkle 1/3 of the sugar in.

Step 3
Whipping on medium speed, gradually add the remaining sugar to the egg.

Step 4
Whips the egg white until stiffed peaked.
HOWEVER..if you want to add any coloring to the macarons, add the gel coloring just before the egg whites become glossy and stiff.

Step 5
Carefully fold the almond, powdered sugar into the meringue, into a batter.

Step 6
Fill pastry bag with batter, using a 1/2' round tip
(Ateco No. 6) and pipe into 1 1/2" mounds.
Due to spreading, don't pipe too close together.
Step 7
Before baking, lightly tap the cookie sheet on the counter.
Allow the cookie batter to sit on the counter, in room temperature at least 30 minutes,to an hour.

Step 8
Bake on the middle rack, at 325°F for 10 minutes.
Bake, one sheet at a time.
Remove from the oven, and allow to cool completely.
To remove the cookies, peel the parchment from the macaron.

Beyond the Cookie Sandwich