Decisions, decisions...

No, I haven't finished the almond macarons JUST yet. But I am having some trouble figuring out which kind to make next.

-blueberry lemonade

-mango vanilla

-lavender lemon

-lemon white chocolate

-coca cola

-cherry limeade

-pink lemonade

-Nutella

-cornmeal sorghum (savory flavors, WHAAAT‽)

-salted caramel

Comment on Facebook, Twitter (@charlyphraser), or on this post! Winner shall (probably) be decided tomorrow!

The Basic Macaron: Almond

The macaron purist can't resist the beauty of a good almond macaron. They're like fluffy clouds of marzipan combined with a cookie. This is the recipe that started it all for me.

This book looks plain enough. It was labeled for around $5 at the Barnes and Noble by Vanderbilt's campus. I was in a snarky mood when I bought it (as demonstrated by my purchase of the cookbook "Fifty Shades of Chicken" by FL Fowler that night), and a bit of a grouch. I was planning on leaving with my purchases to get a Jambon et Fromage next door at Bread & Co., a Nashville staple, then swinging by Satay for a lychee bubble tea. That's still a favorite combo of mine...

Needless to say, my mood was sour. Then this beauty was all by itself on a shelf of books getting ready to go. Being the cookbook fiend I am, and taking this as a reason to actually try making the things, I grabbed it. I've been in love ever since.

This is the recipe I'll be showing you, and I'll be honest: it wasn't until this round of baking that I got them to look almost exactly like that. So don't stress. This takes some trials. Some tasty, snackalicious trials. Everyone's cool with that, right? (Yes, I do have flavor ideas scribbled on the inside of the book. That's moved to a Pinterest page.)

Almond Macarons, yield 15 macarons

Shells:

- 2 egg whites

- 5 tablespoons granulated sugar

- 1/4 teaspoon almond extract (optional but recommended)

- 1 cup powdered sugar

- 1/2 cup plus 2T almond flour/meal (same difference, y'all)

Filling:

- 3/4 cup powdered sugar

- 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Separate your egg whites in the stand mixer. Reserve the yolks for something tasty. Make sure your bowl and whisk attachment are clean and dry, otherwise you're gonna have a bad time. And go ahead and preheat your oven to 325F for convection baking.

In a separate bowl, sift your powdered sugar. It should be pretty easy. Then soft your almond flour on top. See those big dudes chilling out in the bottom when you're done? Throw those suckers out. Gone. Donezo. They'll make your life harder. Yes, sifting is THAT worth it. 

Go ahead and get everything else out now if you haven't. Maybe have a cup of tea to calm your nerves. And when you're ready, start your meringue. First, beat on a medium-low speed until frothy.

Kinda looks like ginger ale. Go ahead and add your granulated sugar and, if you like, the almond extract. This was an amendment of mine that I recommend 100%, mainly because I am an almond addict. It might not be your shot of whiskey, but hey, no hard feelings. Mainly because that means I don't have to share with you.

See all that sugar? Start this off at a lower speed so that doesn't go flying all over your kitchen. Let it get happy in there, and when you think it'll be good (I'd say one to two minutes), let the speed go up a bit at a time until you get to 8 or 10. You'll hear that split splat slpoot noise, trust me. Be calm and steady yourself, because in five minutes or less you'll have THIS!

Mmmmm, tasty. My peak disappeared when I fwacked the meringue off the whisk and it splorted on top. I still found a teensy peak for you, though! 

Now, before I go further, you need your best friend. No, not your BFF Jill, your hard spatula.

Call me crazy all you want, but this does the trick. Nothing else. You want a thin spatula with just enough flexibility to bend with the side of the bowl. That's IT. Found her? Good. Then you'll stir the powdered sugar and almond flour to combine them, and you'll have this:

Please don't confuse this for Bisquick. Do, however, pour about a third on top of your meringue.

Stir it just enough to combine it.

Remember, air is SUPPOSED to leave this batter! It's good for it to shrink! Add the rest and combine. It'll look about like this, and get gradually harder to fold. 

Now it's actually the right color! Yay! And now you also start the macaronner process. Remember, stir the batter up the bowl while smoothing and smooshing it. It takes some time, but you'll get there. 

See how it's getting glossier? Gooood sign. It gets easier to stir and you can really smell the almond if you have a sensitive nose like me.

When it runs off the spatula in a pretty ribbon like this, you're perfect. Now for the piping bag.

I use disposable bags with a coupler and tip. It's a billion times easier. I'll even use ziplock baggies with my coupler and tip, which can be handy with big batches since this batter is a sticky mess. I do recommend getting a coupler and tip, just because it makes life easier and only takes two seconds to clean. But if you don't want to go get one, any ziplock bag with a hole cut on the corner will do.

I apologize for the shaky camera, but this is all on my phone since my camera is currently out of commission. Womp womp. I use Sunny Bakery brand tips and couplers in a 12 for piping the shells. I'll either schmear on the icing or pipe it with a ridged tip depending on how I feel.

Fold over your bag somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 way. This will make sense in a minute if you aren't used to this. DON'T FILL IT UP ALL THE WAY. YOU WILL BE COVERED IN STICKY GOOP AND HATE ME FOREVER. THANK YOU.

Tuck the tip into the palm of your hand so you don't have batter falling everywhere and have a hot mess. Fill it to the top and twist. Get out your cookie sheet and template along with another sheet of parchment.

This is my template. It works great for me, and has lasted probably twenty different trays worth of shells. Throw the second sheet of parchment over it and be ready to pipe!

The weight of the batter will make the Xs easier to see. Start squeezing in the middle, and once you don't see the X, move to the next one. Here, unfortunately, my phone died, so I don't have the piped tray to show you. So imagine them being great (with a couple merging together but who cares, right?) and once cooled, being like this: 

Tada!! Aren't they pretty‽ Now, time for icing.

Your butter will be plenty soft by this point, so take your powdered sugar and butter and dump them in there. Set your mixer on a low setting so your kitchen doesn't look like Miley Cyrus had a coke party in there.

Oh, and this nonsense will happen three or four times. Just scrape out your butter and keep chugging along. 

When it looks less like pie crust and more like icing, like above, add your almond extract. Then scrape the sides of your bowl and whip away!

SO PRETTY :D I went with a butter knife this time because I'm impatient and wanted to get them done so I could eat them sooner. I regret nothing.

When I spread icing on, I spread it on both shells to make sure I don't skimp.

Travesty! I mashed one while icing it!

Obviously it was destined to be a taste tester. See how it's got a thing eggshell outside and a fluffy inside? That, friends, is your goal.

There you have it, folks. Almond macarons. If you're giving these to friends, stick to the rule of throwing them in the fridge for a few hours. If not? Go ahead and nosh to your heart's content. You deserve it.

Ten Rules of Macarons

So, I thought I'd be able to make and assemble macarons today. Turns out, blood thinners make me super super weak. At least I've gotten to research tons of flavors, right‽ So rather than leave you completely postless, I decided to give you my Ten Absolute Rules of Macarons. I'm sure Laudree would shout "sacre bleu!" at some of my suggestions but you know what? I'm Norman, not Parisian French. They can get over it.

1. Convection bake for your sanity. Most recipes will tell you to turn the pan once, twice, even four times. That's stupid. And if you're like me, you'll burn your hands by forgetting to grab an oven mitt. Save yourself some sanity and bake on convection. If your oven's like mine, I'll set it to 325 on convection and it'll go to 300. This is totally fine! Your oven knows what the hell it's doing (usually. Unless your oven is possessed by Satan. Then you're just shit outta luck).

2. Sifting is your friend. If you're using almond meal or flour, you may think "holy fish sticks, Batman, that's a lot of lumps in the bottom that I'm about to throw out!" This is also okay. It'll make the macaronner process easier on you. Don't fret. They'll be the perfect texture.

3. Egg white aging is stupid. It doesn't do anything. Really. All you need to do is make sure the whites aren't immediately-from-the-fridge cold. I crack mine into my standing mixer's bowl, reserving the yolks for lemon curd or some such, and let them come to temperature while I gather and measure out the rest of my ingredients. By that time, they should be fine enough to whip. Remember, too, that the mechanical energy of whipping them up also heats them up.

4. When I say "stiff peaks," I mean it. Add your sugar when the whites are frothy, then whip that sucker till kingdom come. This is perfect for a standing mixer. Wait until you no longer hear that wet, sloppy "splat sploot splat" sound of the meringue whipping, and it should be perfect. Still, check anyway. Lift up the beater. Does it make a shiny peak that stays? Then you're golden.

5. Folding vs Macaronner. Fold in your dry ingredients about a half cup at a time. Once they're all folded and combined, you begin macaronner, which is a specialized stirring technique that involves squishing the batter along the sides of the bowl to beat the air out and make the batter more liquid. You'll have it perfect when you lift your spatula and the batter runs down like a ribbon.

6. Make a template. Piping is a bajillion times easier with a template. I made mine on parchment paper with a sharpie. They're X's that are an inch square and separated by an inch of space. I put another sheet of parchment over it, pipe from the middle of the X, wait until it covers the X, then move to the next one.

7. Always rap your pans. ALWAYS. It'll ensure you have no air bubbles and get that awesome little bubble ring at the bottom, known as "feet." Feet are a sign that you done good, kid.

8. Cooling is complicated. Everyone has different methods. I slide the parchment from the cookie sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies finish cooling undisturbed. This works really well when you have several batches to make. Once they're TOTALLY COOLED, then CAREFULLY peel them from the parchment. They'll ideally be soft on the bottom. If they aren't, no worry: you still have a chance to save them.

9. Don't be afraid of flavor. Flavor the shells and the filling. Seriously! It's worth it. They become that much more worth it to make and add only an extra step or two, normally. And talk about the difference in taste! HUGE. So huge. Some are delicate flavors, and those I'll be sure to mention. But don't be afraid to go bonkers with flavor.

10. Let them chill. After filling and assembling, let them hang out in the fridge for AT LEAST two hours, if not overnight. This'll ensure that any hard bottoms soften up, the flavors come out, and the crunchy outside/fluffy inside juxtaposition comes out fully. If there's no room in the fridge, keep them in a cool place.

There you have it. My absolutes. Oh, and have fun. Remember, this isn't about creating the prettiest, fanciest things on the planet. Your first few batches will probably be finicky. But I promise you, the result is 1000% worth it. Make whatever flavors you want. Seriously, the possibilities are endless. Savory, sweet, tart, salty, you name it and you can do it. (Seriously, I found a recipe today for caprese macarons. WHAT.)

Hopefully tomorrow I'll have actual macarons to show you that don't involve potential fainting in the process. Woo!

The New Year's Resolution

Most people make New Year's resolutions like going to the gym, losing weight, donating to kids in third world countries regularly, and other things that are perfectly nice and good for the average human being.

I am not the average human being.

I went through anorexia for several years, and was only able to get through it by eventually gaining a love and respect of food--flavors, textures, colors, smells. I watched Food Network like it was my job. I went from being terrified of anything fried to being amazed by the art of a perfectly fried piece of chicken, from being scared of the butter dish to sampling butters of different regions, from nearly vomiting when coming near yogurt to loving tzaziki. I've become that twenty-something foodie who lusts in the spice store and craves rashers of jowl bacon. But my greatest food moment came this summer.

I decided after having had a package of macarons from Paris and lusting over them on Pinterest that I needed to attempt making these. Complicated recipes don't phase me. I bought a macaron cookbook on sale, printed off some recipes, and went to work. I followed the book's directions step by step for their Almond Macarons. All was going wonderfully. I had those gorgeous bubbly feet, my batter was the perfect color, but I had unintentionally made pinwheel macarons. The texture wasn't quite perfect. But they still tasted delicious, so I didn't stop. I made almond ones again as well as salted caramel chocolate for our church's bake sale. Again, they were pinwheels. Again, the texture wasn't perfect. The caramel was overly drippy. But they tasted incredible, so I couldn't give up. I then made nearly 300 for my church's annual Christmas tea. In the midst of making those, I accidentally made a batch that went pooly on me and had several connected shells. But the texture was almost perfect! So I pressed onward and discovered exactly what I needed. I proceeded to make 5 kinds of macarons over Christmas. All turned out perfect. 

And so, I vowed to make 2014 the year of the macaron. I would've made some today, but I've been on the couch with about enough energy to nap thanks to a newly discovered blood clot. (If you wake up to find your feet two different colors, get it checked out. Seriously. It's not normal.)

Tomorrow, however, I'll be making almond macarons. It makes a wonderful base to create flavors from, and there are few flavors more classic.

Happy New Year, everyone!