Fancy French Macarons

The title of this recipe is not a typo; in French it’s macarons with only one “o.” And oh, are these famed cookies a treat! The chewy cookies can be flavored in myriad ways, and filled with anything from chocolate ganache to raspberry jam.

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Yield: 3 dozen

Active time: 25 minutes

Start to finish: 1 hour

23/4 cup confectioners’ sugar

21/4 cups almond meal

7 large egg whites, at room temperature

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup superfine granulated sugar

4 to 6 drops food coloring (optional)

1/2 cup Buttercream Icing

1/4 teaspoon pure extract or oil (such as vanilla, almond, lemon, orange, raspberry, or rum)

1. Preheat the oven to 300°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicon baking mats.

2. Combine confectioners’ sugar and almond meal in a food processor fitted with the steel blade and process until smooth. Shake mixture through a fine sieve into a mixing bowl. Use bits of almond remaining in the strainer for another recipe.

3. Place egg whites in a grease-free mixing bowl and beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until frothy. Add the cream of tartar and salt, raise the speed to high, and beat until soft peaks form. Add sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, and continue to beat until stiff peaks form and meringue is glossy. Beat in food coloring, if using.

4. Fold meringue into almond sugar mixture. Fill a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch plain tip with meringue. Pipe out 21/2-inch circles, spacing them 1 inch apart. Tap the baking sheet on the counter and allow meringues to sit for 10 minutes.

5. Bake meringues for 13 to 15 minutes or until tops are dry. Allow macarons to cool completely on the baking sheets on top of a wire rack, then transfer to the cooling rack.

6. Bring Buttercream Icing to room temperature, and stir in extract. Spread 1 heaping teaspoon Buttercream Icing on flat side of one cookie, and sandwich with a second cookie.

Note: Keep cookies in an airtight container, refrigerated, layered between sheets of waxed paper or parchment for up to 3 days.

Variations

star Melt 1 tablespoon instant espresso powder in 1 tablespoon boiling water. Let it cool and beat it into meringue instead of food coloring.

star Substitute thick fruit jam for the buttercream icing.

Macaroons are among the oldest cookies around. Records show that chefs in the royal court were making them as early as the mid-sixteenth century. Our English word macaroon comes from the French macarons, which comes from the Italian word maccarone, which means a small cake made with almonds. It’s likely that Catherine de Medici brought them to France from Italy when she arrived in 1533.