Happy Friday to all of you! I hope you all have had a fabulous week and are as excited as I am that it’s Friday! I did it! I over came my baking fears! Thanks to Lone a great friend and amazing baker. We made the Almond Macarons with Pink Champagne from the Mowielicious post together! We had such a great time making them. Val another good friend of ours took all the amazing photos with her beautiful camera and Lone’s sister was here from Norway so it was truly a girls day in and a bake fest in the Hanssen kitchen.

For the Macaron Shell:

• 100g egg whites (aged for 48 hours, so bizarre, it took me a little bit to get over this!)
• 10g dried egg whites (I found mine at a health food store)
• 120g finely ground almonds
• 200g powdered sugar (icing sugar)
• 25g granulated sugar

For the Icing:

• 2 egg whites
• 140g sugar
• 1 tbsp pink edible glitter (I got this at Sur La Table)
• 5 tbsp pink champagne
• 220g butter, at room temperature

Macaron Shells:
Step 1:

• Separate your egg whites and keep them in a bowl covered with a plate at room temperature for 48 hours.

Step 2:

• Whip the aged and dried egg whites with a mixer until stiff peaks form. Slowly add the sugar and keep mixing util it is all incorporated and the mixture turns glossy.Do not over mix the egg whites as the macs will turn out too dry.

Step 3:

• Sift ground almonds and powdered sugar together then incorporate into the egg whites.

This is where it really helped to have an extra set of hands in the kitchen. Lone whipped up the egg whites while I tackeled the sifting of the almonds and powdered sugar.



Step 4:

• Place a teaspoon of the batter onto a plate. If the top smooths out slowly, leaving a flat surface, then your batter is ready. If there are stilll peaks or ridges on the surface, give your batter a few more turns.

Step 5:

• Place your batter into a piping bag fitted with a plain small tip. Pipe roughtly 4cm rounds. Preheat your oven to about 150C or about 275F. Let macaroons sit out at room temp for at least 45 min until their outer surface forms a skin. Then bake for 15-20 min.

Step 6:

• Remove from the oven and allow the macs to cool thoroughly before attempting to remove them. If you used a silicone sheet, they should lift off easily. If you used a baking paper, the macs might stick to it, so just dab a few drops of water under the baking paper, then lift them off.

Our macarons where a little wet. I think we should have kept them out for longer so that they formed more of an outer skin. I also think we should have lowered the temp of the oven and kept them baking for longer.



Pink Champagne Icing for Macarons
Step 1:

• Hand whisk the egg whites until foamy Mix in the sugar, and pink champagne. Place the mixture over a water bath. Keep whisking by hand until the mixure is piping hot and the sugar has dissolved.

Step 2:

• Remove from water bath and mix with an electric mixer on high speed. Keep mixing until the bowl starts to cool down.

Step 3:

• Add butter, one tablespoon at a time at first then two tablespoons at a time. Make sure to incorporate the butter properly into the mxiture each time you add butter.

Step 4:

• Add the pink edible glitter.

Step 5:

• Place buttercream into a piping bag, fitter again with a small nozzle, and pipe a small amount onto a macaron shell. Cover with another macaron shell. Refrigerate for best results.

Tips and Tricks:

• This recipe came from Mowie’s blog. To learn more about how to make macaron’s as well as getting some tips and tricks. Visit his blog.

It felt great to tackel my fears of baking. Lone thank you so much for suggesting we do this together! We had such a great time we’ve decided to take on another one of Mowies amazing desserts and will share more about that in the the weeks to come.