At long last

Hello all.

As tomorrow would officially be my first day of internship, I’ve decided to update this page before I get too caught up with work-school life.

I wanna share on my recent attempt on MACARONS!!

If you have read my post on macarons, I have succeeded once but failed the rest (unfortunately). I think it was either too humid or anything could have gone wrong! Macarons are so tough to perfect!!

I did a little experimenting. I had planned to bake some using my new silicon mat and some on a heavy metal tray to see if there was any difference. I also dried some macarons at different timings. BATCH 1: no drying. BATCH 2: 45 mins drying time and BATCH 3: 20 mins drying time. I must say, I was pretty happy with the outcome for batch 2 which had the longest drying time.

The most important objective that I wanted to achieve was my macarons having feet whilst baking!!And true enough, FEET WAS SEEN after about 5-10 mins! I was jumping for joy because after several failed attempts (though not using the same recipe, I finally FINALLY achieved feet). Hooray. Okay, I’ll share some pictures now during the process.

Batch 1 before baking: no drying time (on silicon mat)

Batch 2 before baking: 45 mins drying time (metal tray used)

Batch 2 after baking: slightly rough surface

Batch 3 after baking: top

Batch 3 after baking: bottom

The surface tops of 3 diff batches

The bottom/bases of 3 diff batches

Compare: batch 2 had the smoothest bottom(not sticky)

This was to see the diff between using a silicon mat and metal tray

Final outcome with choc ganache

Final outcome with choc ganache

Final outcome with choc ganache

Although I did not take pics of every batch before/after baking, I think you sorta get the point that batch  produced the most appropriate results (despite the slightly rough surfaces of each). I think it was due to the grounded almond I used. It wasn’t as fine. Batch 2 had a smooth base while the other two batches were slightly sticky and caused some to crack ): Overall, all batches had feet so yay.

BATCH 1 (no drying)

Taste: I think the sweetness was there. It was chewy, soft and sticky

 

Texture: fairly smooth surface but broken base

Appearance: pink turned peachy colour

BATCH 2 (45 mins drying time)

Taste: Almond. It was crisp, chewy and less sticky.

Texture: Slightly rough on the surface

Appearance: it was supposed to be peachy in colour but it turned out darker esp for this batch.

BATCH 3 (20 mins drying time, silicon mat used)

Taste: similar to batch 1

Texture: slightly rough surface and cracked easily when pressed together

Appearance: slightly broken base

As for the usage of silicon mat and heavy tray, I found that the macarons baked on the heavy tray had better/less sticky bases compared to those baked on the silicon mat. I will try this recipe out again when I find the time!

So I hope this has not bored you readers to death. If you want the recipe, feel free to comment! (:

For now, I gotta prepare for my first day of work tomorrow!! Excited yet nervous :S