Recipe; Framboise Macarons...

On my recent trip to Ladurée in Harrods its safe to say i've become obsessed with french patisseries. So i had a free day yesterday and decided to try and bake a batch of macarons. I found a recipe online from the laduée sucre book which was raspberry, bonus... fancied my hand at raspberry jam as well! So i nipped and got all the ingredients that i hadn't had in cracked straight on with them. They turned out so well, that i made them again to take pictures and share with you the recipe...

Ingredients:

Macaron shells 

275g (2 3/4 cups + 1 tbsp) ground almonds (almond flour)250g (2 cups + 1 tbsp) confectioners (icing) sugar210g (6 1/2) egg whites (I used fresh egg whites)210g (1 cup + 1 tbsp) granulated sugara few drops red or maroon food coloring gel
Raspberry Jam Filling225g (1 cup + 2 tbsp) granulated sugar2 tsp powdered pectin375g (3 cups) french raspberries1/2 lemon 

The batch makes around 60 cookie shells, so i halved the ingredients to make 30, because 60 macarons laying around in the house is not ideal! 

Start by preparing the Jam: 

Wash the raspberries, then in a large bowl combine the sugar and pectin. In your food processor, puree the fresh raspberries and then pour into a medium sauce pan. 

Over low heat bring the berries to just barely warm then add the sugar and pectin mixture and the juice from the half lemon. Bring the mixture to a boil and cook for two minutes. Pour the jam into a bowl and cover, allow to cool and then refrigerate until chilled.

To make the macaron cookies: 

Preheat your oven to 300°F with an oven rack in the lower third (If your cookies tend to burst, move the rack higher. If your cookies tend to brown, move the rack lower).
Combine almond flour and confectioners sugar together in a food processer and blend thoroughly. Sift the mixture through a medium gauge sifter to remove any lumps or large pieces of almond and repeat until fine.

 

In a large clean dry mixing bowl, beat your egg whites until foamy and then slowly add the granulated sugar beating on medium speed. Once the sugar has disolved, increase speed to medium high and beat until a thick glossy meringue forms. Add the food coloring and beat briefly to combine. Aswell as food colouring i also mixed in a teaspoon of vanilla extract just to give them extra sweetness!

 

With a large flat rubber spatula, fold one third of your sifted almond/sugar into the egg whites until combined. Repeat, until you've added all the almond mixture. How much mixing beyond incorporation is the tricky part to describe. If you're used to my most recent macaron recipe, you'll find that this recipe needs a few strokes more mixing. The batter is thicker and packs a lot of air and if you don't deflate it during mixing your shells may have nipples or crack.

Pipe your cookies onto parchment or silicone baking mats and then allow to rest for 5 minutes before baking.
Bake one sheet at a time for 15 minutes. To prevent hollows, I recommend snatching one cookie from the oven and breaking it open prior to removing the cookie sheet. If the insides are still overly moist or molten, leave the cookies in the oven for 1-5minutes longer until the insides are set. This will prevent the insides from collapsing during cooling and forming hollows.
Allow the cookies to cool completely on the baking sheet.

Fill the cookies with a small dollop of jam and then arrange in an air tight container. Refrigerate the cookies for a minimum of 24 hours to mature. Then bring to room temperature and serve. (i definitely couldn't wait 24hours so i started eating mine whilst they were still warm!) They still tasted delicious!

I had the box which i bought my macarons in from Laduée, so it just felt so necessary to present them in it for the french-chic finishing touch!

 I've ordered their recipe book and cannot wait to test out more yummy recipes.