Saturday, April 6, 2013

French Macaroons with Raspberry-Rose Buttercream from Bon Appetit

With macaroons becoming more and more popular, I decided to give it a shot after my mom showed me the French Macaroons with Raspberry-Rose Buttercream recipe from her Bon Appetit magazine.  If you are interested in the recipe, you can get it here: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2011/01/french_macaroons_with_raspberry_rose_buttercream


Macaroons are pretty much fancy sandwich cookies.  They are made with almond flour and are fussy, but delicious.


Almond flour is just finely ground almonds.  You get a batter like this that you then pipe out into dots on a cookie sheet.


If you've ever made meringue cookies, it's a similar process.  However, the baking process is fussy and you need to be by the oven to make adjustments often.


After baking the cookies I made the filling for the recipe.  One part of the filling is making raspberry jam.  If I make this recipe again, I would probably just go buy some jam as I didn't think mine tasted too different and it would save on the time that it takes to make these cookies.

I ran into a snag with the rose buttercream.  I couldn't find any rose water, so I'm not sure how that would have changed the taste.  I was skeptical about the frosting since you have to heat it over a water bath and I was sure the eggs in the recipe would curdle.  I was wrong and it comes out as a smooth frosting that even with the addition of the jam tasted to me like a fancy butter spread that will be going on some waffles in the near future to finish up the leftovers from the recipe.


The next part is the assembly.  I tried to match up all the cookies since my hands aren't steady and I don't have the practice and finesse of a professional baker to ensure equal sized cookies.


Next I applied the jam to one side of the cookie.  I also don't think I cooked my jam long enough, because it stayed runny.  I also would probably just strain all the seeds out, because I'm not a fan of them, but it isn't a critical thing for the recipe.



Then the frosting was spread on the other half of the cookie. 



And then after putting the two together, a marvelous macaroon was created.


Because of the piping method for creating the cookies, I made exactly the three dozen cookies that the recipe said it would make (I usually make my cookies too big and end up with significantly less).


And then I got to indulge in the tasty treats.  They came out delicious, but the amount of work that went into them makes me hesitant to try them again.  However, I was really pleased with the cookie part which is plain, so I think I'll make those again and maybe try some different filling combinations.


The one bad thing about macaroons is that they do not hold up for a long time.  I kept mine in an airtight container in the fridge, but the liquidy jam I made had them getting softer after a day.  I'm not sure how well they would have lasted after that, because they were all eaten.

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