There are Macarons and then there are MacaWRONGS. I had envisioned pretty dainty sandwich shells with perfect smooth pearlescent tops and fancy frilly feet - perhaps a tad ambitious on my part. Actually, I was way too arrogantly ambitious! To think I would get it right the first time round! Hah. Even professional patissier like David Lebovitz had to endure seven times of failure to produce a good batch of macarons.
Ah well, all was not lost with these limbless deformed babies of mine. They may not have the looks but surprisingly they do taste good when dunked in my coffee. Fragile crusts that break with the lightest of touch and soft marshmallowy chewy centres were delightful and addictive to eat. These qualities have redeemed and saved them from the fate of ending up in the dreaded bin. Well most failed bakes of mine rarely do end up in the bin anyway. They mostly reincarnate as 'treats' for my fur-kids. Lucky them. Haha!
My cutie pie Jessie (she's actually a pig disquised as a dog) and darling Sandy would gladly and eagerly gobble up any 'treats' that I occasionally present to them.
Except for this fat boy. He'll have none of the sweet 'treats'. This jelly belly carnivore only goes gaga for meat especially raw chicken.
Now back to my macawrongs. I confess I do feel humbled and at the same time somewhat intimidated by these macawrongs. But I will not give up, I'll try again. Until I manage to perfect my skills & technique and tame these fussy & temperamental little divas, there'll be no more macaron posts from me. Till then. Fingers crossed.
Now, please excuse my ramblings.
Dun worry, I also failed multiple times before I got my Macs right. I love your cat's fur, looks so soft just like a soft toy! Hehehe :)
ReplyDeleteI also had tons of macawrongs! And even when after I mastered them, I still have macawrongs sometimes! But I do the same thing as you - my failed products turn out to be treats for my furkids too :D
ReplyDeleteHi Cathy & Janine, thanks dropping by. Now I'm reassured that there will be plenty more of macawrongs to come for sure before I get macarons! Hahaha
ReplyDeleteyeah! don't give up! macarons can be so finicky to make and so temperamental to bake. I still get a lot of ugly fugly macaron shells so you are not alone!
ReplyDeleteWhich method did you use? I presume the french meringue method? Maybe you can outline your procedure and we can help you troubleshoot! the most important thing is don't give up!
don't worry you will get it right pretty soon! i also fail a couple of times when i used david's recipe!
ReplyDeleteHello travelling foodie & Jess,
ReplyDeleteI used the french method as it seemed easy. I suspect I might have undermixed my batter. After I've piped out the macarons, the batter wouldn't settle to a nice smooth surface. Hence my lumpy looking macawrongs. Oh well. Thanks for the encouragement though. :)
might i suggest another method ? =P I would post it here for your convenience but I think it is rather rude to post links to my blog on yours. but do check it out, maybe it will help.
ReplyDeleteI also suggest looking at this book: (I love macarons) by hisako ogita
cheers!
Hi c.s.e.l, thanks for the suggestion. Really I don't mind u or anyone posting links as long as they're not spam links! Cheers!
ReplyDeleteFrench Macarons here you go then =)
ReplyDeletedogs cant eat sweet things esp things like chocolate..it can cause internal damage to their organs..which you may not see till its much later..so be careful. just my one cent advice.
ReplyDeletesally
Hi Sally, thanks for your advice :) Don't worry, I know about chocolate poisoning in dogs so I don't feed my darling dogs anything that has cocoa.
ReplyDelete