The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.
This was not my first attempt at making macarons. In September Twitter was all abuzz about the finicky like pastry and I joined with others around the globe in a Mac Attack. Who knew that one little cookie could be so temperamental and difficult to master. My first attempts at macarons yielded a delicious but less than perfect macaron with tutus instead of feet.
In hopes of finally conquering the challenge of creating a perfect macaron, I read and reread all the tips and suggests for this month’s challenge. I aged my egg whites on the counter. I weighed my ingredients. I sifted my almond meal. I whipped my whites until stiff peaks formed and the peak did not fall over. I used stacked cookie sheets. Although short of the perfection I was hoping for, my macarons have definitely come a long way baby.
For my first batch I used vanilla sugar and made Audax’s two egg version of the Daring Bakers recipe, but I doubled the granulated sugar. They were a bit undercooked and sticky, even after trying to dry them in a warm oven, but still delicious! Both macarons are filled with dulce de leche.
The second batch was David Lebovitz chocolate macarons. The chocolate macarons were a bit too ruffly, but tasted divine! Sort of like a chocolate caramel brownie.
Visit the Daring Bakers’ Blogroll to see macarons in lots of wonderful flavors and all the colors of the rainbow.
Cafe Rio Sweet Pork Barbacoa Salad
I love to bake, especially cookies, cakes, and pies.
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Oh, I love them! They look great!! I have such a good time baking with you two! Can't wait to see what we are baking up next!
here we are doing macs again. barbara love the contrast of the dark and pure white macarons. lovely lovely!
I love Dulce de leche.. gonna try that for my next mac experiment (after a month atleast :))).. Yours are so perfect!! love the center pic..
Yours look great! I couldn't get the recipe to work for me, so I ended up posting the ones I did back in August. Love the dulce de leche filling!
they look so good! i really slaughtered mine. they sound delicious :)
You are getting better and better with each batch! These look beautiful and too scrumptious! Trade? Can't wait to see what flavors you'll try next time (Mac Attack, of course!).
Barbara your MACS turned out soooooo great! Awesome job!
Lovely macaroons, the taste had to be amazing! And all of them have legs! You did a great job!
YAY for you Barbara…that dulce de leche is singing to me. Love your choice of flavours, and yes, you got feet…lovely! What a relief that was, wasn't it!!
Oooh, they look wonderful! And I love the dulce de leche filling.
You're getting really good at these! Pity you can't join us at the weekend but some other time.
Beautiful macs! I tried one time and flopped terribly. LOL!!
wow they came out real nice!
Like a chocolate caramel brownie? I'm in. All of your macarons look fabulous!
YUM! They came out lovely! I tried David Lebovitz's recipe too and, um, let's just say it didn't go as well as your lovelies! I had a bowl of dry chocolate mush. I think I overbeat my eggs past hard peaks… for some reason they didn't seem to want to firm up. Don't know what I did wrong! OH well, I got some macs out of the deal from Tartelette's recipe! :D
Wow ur macs look gorgeous!
Nice feet! I've never made macarons but from reading everyone's blogs I understand that the feet are what everyone's after. Very pretty macarons!
This is what I call perfect macarons! You're really really good at these.
Well done! I am too much a scaredy cat to even try these, so applause applause for you!!
I think yours look amazing!
They look so pretty!
Wow, your chocolate macaroons look so velvety and beautiful. I never got feet, but they were tasty!
Chocolate caramel brownie.. yum. Your macaroons looks fantastic.
Mimi
Your macarons are gorgeous, Barbara. I suppose it is like most things: practice, practice, practice. I've yet to give them a try but I'm working up to it.
Brilliant job Barbara and you got the prized feet-bravo! :D
GORGEOUS!! I had some issues with mine being a bit undercooked as well. Luckily I baked mine in batches and significantly adjusted the oven temp and cooking time.
look how pretty they are, they turned out wonderful!
I have never been able to master macaroons but these look great!
Your macarons look awesome!!! I think you did a great job on this challenge. I love dulce de leche. Thanks for the kind words you left on my blog. I hope you make the cinnamon rolls macs very soon.
they turned out beautiful!
The dulce de leche filling sounds great. Very nice job!! I am very impressed. I failed, but may try again!
Such pretty little feet! Beautifully done and I LOVE the idea of a dulce de leche filling. YUM!
I actually think ruffly is cute. and they were tasty, so yeah.
Your macarons are so beautiful! I love the contrast between the vanilla and chocolate…delicious!
I'm glad you had success! They look scrumptious! Love the dulce de leche filling!
looks like you were successful on all fronts! fantastic job!
The centre shot of the macarons look quite nice. Good work with the post :)
Those dark chocolate macarons look so delicious! I love the dulce de leche filling you used–perfect! :)
those are are lovely, lovely macaroons..wish I could make mine it as nice as yours next time :)
Mmm, is it bad that I want to eat a plate of those chocolate ones for breakfast? They look great!
Nice job! They look wonderful!
They look beautiful!! Love your flavors too. Well done!!
your macs look gorgeous and i bet they taste amazing love the filling! yumm
These look great, perfect in fact! LOVE the filling!
Que delicia!! Saludos desde México
Te invito a visitar mi blog
http://artscakesandchocolate.blogspot.com/
I love the contrast of your macarons! Beautiful! I would love to take a bite out of the chocolate version! :)
Yours look perfect!
Your macarons look perfect! I am more and more intrigued about these 'temperamental' cookies now.
Very pretty! You've done a great job with both recipes.
how delicious!
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