How to Bake French Macarons, for Amateur and Pro-Bakers Alike!

The cookie, the myth, the macaron! I know these delectable nuggets of meringue have a bad reputation. Folks think of them as temperamental cookies made best in the hands of pro-bakers, but these French delicacies are surprisingly easy, and once you get the hang of them, you’ll never stop baking them! This is my fool-proof recipe for plain macaron shells sandwiched with a luscious pastry cream.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Bake Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Tips and Tricks to know before you start baking!

Cold eggs? Stack them in a tall glass and fill it up with warm water. Let them sit for 10 minutes and you have warm, pliable eggs that easily separate.

Before you start whipping up your egg whites, make sure your bowl and whisk are completely clean and dry! Any fat left lying on either will hinder the eggs and your meringue will fall. That means that if you have any yolk in your egg whites, they won’t whip!

If you’re thinking of using cartoned egg whites, don’t do it! Cartoned egg whites only work about 20% of the time. You’re better off separating your own eggs.

Want to add some color? Make sure to use gel-based coloring! Water-based food coloring will unsettle the amount of liquid in the batter and make your macarons spread and become thin.

Do you like precision? Stencil out circles on your parchment paper and all of your macarons will be the same size!

*Don’t know how to fold? Here’s the low-down: you want to run your off-set spatula (and you need an off-set spatula, not a metal spatula) in a circle around your batter softly before folding the batter over itself. You then want to cut down the middle of the batter before once again folding it. Fold, cut, and fold over and over again. You want to do all of this gently! Do not force it to come together by mixing it!

*How to pipe macaron cookies: simply squeeze the bag with the tip close to the sheet, do not draw a circle. Before you pull away your piping bag, flick your wrist away quickly once you’ve piped the cookie, so you have no ‘ice cream tip’ on the top of your shell.

Macaron Shells

- 3 large egg whites at room temperature

- ¼ cup granulated sugar

- 1 cup almond flour

- 2 cups powdered sugar

- Pinch of salt

- ¼ Teaspoon Cream of Tartar.

1. Preheat your oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Whip the egg whites on high until they become foamy.

3. Once foamy, add the salt, granulated sugar, and cream of tartar.

4. Whip your mixture on high until you reach a soft peak. At a soft peak - which is when you stop your whisk, lift it up, and the meringue mountain that forms under the whisk flops over - you can add your color.

5. Continue to whip on high until you have a stiff peak, which means the mountain that forms when you lift your whisk stands tall and firm, and you can turn your bowl upside down without the batter moving. Check periodically for this stiff peak, as you do not want to overwhip your meringue.

6. Add your powdered sugar and almond flour to a sieve and sift half of it into you egg whites. Now, this is important! You want to fold* those dry ingredients into your egg whites. Once it is just combined, sift in the rest of your dry ingredients, and fold them in. You want to keep folding until you can lift your spatula and draw a figure 8 with the batter as it falls from the spatula. Make sure to check this frequently as it is easy to over-mix your cookies!

7. Once you are able to draw a figure 8, fill a piping bag with a round piping tip. Pipe* your cookies on your stenciled parchment paper on top of a baking sheet.

7. Bang your baking sheet a couple of times on your counter to get rid of any air bubbles that may be in your cookies.

8. Let your cookies sit on the counter for 20-40 minutes until they form a skin. A skin forms when you can run your finger over the cookie and no batter comes off and it feels dry. 9. Once they have formed their skin, bake them for 20 minutes. Don’t wait for them to brown on the top, because they’re not supposed to! You know they are done when you can see their bottoms beginning to grow dark, not their tops. And it will never be longer than 20 minutes!

Vanilla Pastry Cream

- 2 tablespoons butter

- 1 half of a vanilla pod

- ¼ cup granulated sugar

- 2 egg yolks

- 1 whole egg

- 2 cups milk (skim or whole)

- ¼ cup cornstarch

- 1/3 cup granulated sugar

1. In a deep saucepan on medium heat, whisk together your milk, ¼ cup of granulated sugar, and your scraped vanilla bean seeds along with the vanilla bean itself. Bring this mixture to a boil while keeping it on medium heat.

2. While your mixture is heating up, whisk together your egg yolks and egg in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, combine your cornstarch and 1/3 cup sugar. Add that to your eggs and whisk quickly until smooth.

3. Remove the vanilla bean from your milk and add it in a small stream into the egg mixture while whisking quickly so the milk doesn’t cook the eggs.

4. Once all of your milk is incorporated, return the mixture to the saucepan, and slowly bring it to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly so the eggs don’t curdle. Do this until the mixture thickens. Once it thickens, turn off your stove and mix in the butter.

5. Pour the finished mixture into a heat proof bowl and mix in your butter.

6. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap directly on the surface so that a skin doesn’t form on the cream, and chill it completely before using.

If you used a stencil, all of your shells should be the same shape. If not, look for shells that are a similar size and shape. Once you locate a pair of matching cookies, use piping bag to drop a dollop of pastry cream between the two of them; it’ll get messy if you try to spoon or use a knife to apply the cream!

Congratulations, I hope you have realized how easy French Macarons truly are! Not only are they a breeze to make, but they are also an incredibly impressive skill to have under your belt 😊. But remember, every type of bake takes practice! And the key for these cookies is in the fold. Once you get the hang of folding, you will have these cookies down pat.