Daring Bakers: French Macaroons

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macaroons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

What, macaroons without coconut? Never heard of such a thing. But with a list of ingredients like this --


-- how hard could they be?

I’d never used almond flour. My husband, who does all the cooking in the house and sometimes a little baking, was happy to see it on the grocery list. He’d seen it in recipes for almond cookies and granola bars, but had never splurged. Meanwhile, I had no clue what almond flour goes for ($13/lb!), so I just put it on his list, despite the fact I had three pounds of almonds in the pantry and could have ground my own.

Interesting stuff, almond flour. Heavy and oily, not conducive to my usual method of sifting.


It took a while, but I got 98% of it through the sieve and whisked in the rest.

After our Milanos challenge in August, I decided penciling in circle templates wasn’t worth the effort, so I decided to wing it. Not bad…


The first batch I baked exactly according to the recipe. But I didn’t get the infamous “feet” on my macaroons that I’d read so much about.


The second batch I baked a few minutes longer, and ta-dah -- FEET!


The next part of the challenge was the filling. I decided on a Nutella-chocolate ganache.

1/2 c. heavy cream
3/4 c. dark chocolate
3 T. Nutella


Anything made with Nutella gets a thumbs-up from me, but this needed more Nutella and less chocolate. Maybe even no chocolate at all.

I’d definitely call this challenge a success, and they were unquestionably delicious, but I don’t know if I’d make them again unless by specific request. I’ve discovered more “fussy” or “fancy” cookies aren’t my thing. I’m more of a comfort food girl, and to me comfort food is heartier, not so delicate. Verdict: impressive-looking and tasty, not difficult, but just not my thing.

Bring It On

I made my first pie crust tonight. Okay, probably not my first, but my first memorable one. The first one that made me excited to do it again.

Eric was mowing for the last time before next spring, and decided to salvage a few apples from our tree for a pie. I offered to make the crust.


I attended a convention for court reporters a few weeks ago, and one of the seminars was “Community Building”, or something similar. The speaker told us of her experiences organizing fund-raising activities for the Hood River, Oregon, Soroptimist Group. Specifically, their annual apple pie contest. As she told us how she got involved and what she does, she gave us detailed instructions on how to produce a beautiful, flaky pie crust.

Our convention organizers put together their own apple pie contest.


I’m not much of a pie person. I like cake. When asked whether I’d be willing to submit an entry, I declined, claiming, “I don’t do pie”.

Armed with tips from a contest winner, I decided it was time to tackle it. Thanksgiving is approaching, after all, and I've been informed that it just isn't Thanksgiving without apple pie. I usually make Marcy Goldman’s Fancy Apple Cake (from Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking) for Thanksgiving. (It's really more of a pie with a sugar-cookie crust.)


So to please the masses, I gave in. And of course I had to go all-out and attempt a lattice top.


With the leftover pie dough, I made cinnamon-sugar – what are these called?? My mom used to make them all the time, and they remind me of Thanksgivings growing up. Only her pies were usually blackberry.







Oh, wait – did you want the flaky crust tips? Basically:

COLD butter
COLD counter top (where you’ll roll out the dough)
Parchment paper (for sandwiching the dough when you roll it)

I used half shortening, half butter. I cut in the shortening with a pastry cutter –


-- then cut the cold butter into tiny squares and just tossed them into the flour.

So easy. Who knew?

Un Cadeau

Once again I’m inspired by my Flickr scavenger hunt. Item number 4 of October’s list is “un cadeau” – a gift.


Finally, my late-night Pringles cravings pay off. (I also save cardboard oatmeal canisters for the same purpose.)

Inside the Pringles tube: World Peace Cookies for my dad's birthday, from Eggs On Sunday. And behind the cookies, sort of a gag gift -- a framed photo of his precious chickens.


When we visited my dad last month, he served homemade ice cream flavored with Mexican chocolate. So I decided to substitute the bittersweet chocolate chips for Abuelita Mexican Chocolate, something I’d purchased for my one attempt at dinner in the past six months.


It seems to have a lot more sugar in it than bittersweet chocolate, however, so I reduced the amount of chocolate in the recipe by ¼ cup.



These are beautifully simple cookies. Easy to make, especially considering the rolled dough can be frozen for later use (the holidays are fast approaching!), then thawed in the refrigerator for easy slicing. The recipe instructs you to take them out off the oven at precisely 12 minutes, warning that they will not appear to be done. That is true. I trusted the recipe and followed the baking instructions to the letter, and the cookies were perfectly baked.


I’ll make these again, but I’ll use dark chocolate instead of the Mexican chocolate, or maybe nuts. Not because I don’t like the addition of cinnamon, but I’d like a less sweet cookie, something closer to a bite of dark chocolate to go with my afternoon espresso.

As for un cadeau, I’m not thrilled with my photo and will most likely wait for another opportunity to present itself (ha, ha, get it?!) before I submit it to the pool by the end of the month.