Week 3: Macarons

Hi everyone!

A distant fantasy

This week I decided to give macarons a crack. I had a vivid fantasy about triumphantly presenting my Adriano Zumbo macaron tower to a symphony of oohs and ahs. When I skimmed the ingredients list, my semi-functional brain and lack of monetary funds brought this fanciful daydream to a sad and sudden end. I did, however, insist on attempting a Zumbo recipe. How could I not? After all, he’s the ultimate macaron master and a MasterChef family favourite to boot.

Ganache

Adriano requested that I use 160 g of passion fruit juice. While I'm not exactly in my right mind, I'm not silly enough to drop fat stacks on that many passion fruits. Instead my dear mother purchased a bottle of orange and passion fruit juice, which was the most insipid liquid I'd ever set eyes on. Therefore, though nothing went disastrously, I wasn't surprised when my ganache was the consistency of syrupy tears.

Macaron shells

First meringue mixture
i.e. industrial waste

Adriano and I had a little misunderstanding. I forgot to split my egg whites into two batches, so my first meringue mixture was something horrendous. The concoction split- fluorescent yellow egg-whites rose, sitting atop a sugary, liquid-y goo. Why am I always left with a bowl-full of wasted produce, which bears a heavy resemblance to school-camp scrambled eggs?

Almond meal is an absolute pain in the backside to sift. I almost bent the mesh of my sifter trying to jam the coarse stuff through. I really needn't have bothered. Despite my laborious efforts, the macaron mixture was as lumpy as second-rate porridge.

I cannot draw a perfect circle to save my life, and it turns out I can't pipe one either. After waiting for my macarons to develop a 'skin', I deposited them into the oven with my pair of singed mitts and a prayer. 

Miraculously (if you don’t judge a book by its lumpy cover), they were wonderful.

Adriano vs Rosa (I was stingy with the food colouring. Also, other things went wrong.)

Rating rubric

Taste: 9/10- despite the trials and tribulations, I was filled with pride as I savoured a finished macaron

The Disaster Zone

Presentation/resemblance to dish: 4/10- they looked more like rock cakes than macarons

Time: 1/10- 4:45pm-9:00pm- 'skinning' and baking time included (recommended time was 1-2 hours) 

Kitchen Mess: 0/10- really bad, as in worse-than-my-bedroom bad.

So while the finished product was a reasonable triumph, the process was not. It's safe to say that I'm not MasterChef ready (yet).

Cheers,

Rosa