Anyway, the recipe I tried this weekend is here. This is a better recipe that I've tried. I think too that since I know how to do it, I did alot of prep work overnight. First thing you should do ahead of time is set the egg whites aside ahead of time. And take it from me, using pre-made egg white yield to a very different result. This time I used real eggs and separated them apart the night before.
I was baking something else and I thought while I was at it, I also went ahead and sift the flour ahead of time. Here's another tip for you, do not use the sifter that has 2 layer sift. In theory, that was a good idea, but in reality, you can't clean that thing. What's more ridiculous was that I was searching online if there's any info on how to clean, some people say don't clean it. WTF??? You need to have to have a way to clean it because stuff gets stuck and it will remain stuck in between the layers. Bleh! Either use a grinder style to sift or use a tamis. A tamis will be a pain, and your arm will hate you the following day, but it will get the job done and cheap.
That said, this time around, I didn't achieve the 'feet' that a French Macaron would. Unlike last time w/ the beginners luck. However, the taste of the cookie was not shabby. The consistency was good. According to recipe, it was supposed to bake for 11-13 mins. Personally, I left them in there while working on piping the batter and about 16 mins or so, and that was nice and golden brown. Now, I have yet to try to add food coloring in there, so that obviously will come into play. But for plain janes, wait till they are golden brown.
The whole piping thing too, there's a trick to it. I used a size 12 piping tip and as someone described, its like making a chocolate kiss and have that little tip on top. When it bakes, the tip disappear. So, don't worry.
That said, I did space them out, and made them smaller. Last time I made them too big. But, because there's nothing in the batter to raise the dough, it won't expand more than what you pipe out. Oh, and parchment paper, saved my butt. If it's golden brown, it'll pop out nice and easy. If it's not golden brown (read: under baked) it will stick. As a matter of fact, it sticks together even a day after it's been out of the oven.
Another thing to note, the recipe only called for 4 ingredients, but when in fact, they had left out granulated sugar. You need granulated sugar in order to whip the egg white (and a pinch of salt) to nice and stiff peaks. From my research, 2 tsp of sugar slowly added will do the trick.
Now, on to the filling. This recipe has a nice little ganache filling. I must say, it wasn't as difficult as I thought it'd be. It came out pretty nice too. I'd figured that it'd be over empowering-ly sweet. But it came out nice and easy. When you put it between the two almond cookies, it balances out nicely. One thing I would say on that recipe is that it yielded way too much ganache. Now, maybe I'm not generous enough with the filling, which I didn't think that was the case because I squish them nicely and neatly. Not alot of overages coming out of the cookie. So, don't know. But let me tell you, when I was done w/ the cookies, I had to throw away half of the ganache batch, I felt very sad. :(
All in all, great recipe. If I were to do this again, this will be my go-to. It has only 5 ingredients that you can easily locate. Yes, you do have prep work to do ahead of time. But if you do half of them the day before you bake, it came out to be pretty easy.
Don't forget the sifting tip, don't forget your granulated sugar, cut the ganache recipe in half, and you're good to go!
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