Macarons shells are naturally lactose free and gluten free! They are also a great way to use up left over egg whites. They are tricky to master but a bit of practice and watching some expert YouTube videos helps.
20 macarons
45 min + 1 hour resting
20 min
Ingredients
- 2 egg whites
- 35g granulated sugar
- 130g icing sugar
- 60g almond flour
Directions
- Make the almond flour by sieving ground almonds and removing the coarse parts. I find sieving ground almonds produces almond flour that is adequate. The more formal recipes recommend using a food processor to make a very fine flour. While this certainly helps, I don't think it's essential.
- Mix the almond flour with the sieved icing sugar.
- Whisk the egg whites with the granulated sugar until they form stiff peaks. If you want coloured macarons add a couple of drops of gel food colouring at this stage.
- The next step is called macronage. Add half the almond flour/icing sugar mixture and fold into the egg whites. Once well mixed, add the other half. Fold until the mixture is viscous and you can paint a figure of 8 with the mixture. The mixture should not be too fluffy.
- Line a baking tray with baking paper.
- Place mixture into a piping bag with a ca. 1cm round head and pipe out ca. 40 blobs. Once all the blobs have been piped tap the tray hard on the worktop to smooth out any peaks that might have formed on the blobs during the piping process.
- Leave to rest for 1 hour so that a skin can form on the macarons.
- Pre-heat oven to 140C.
- Bake in middle shelf for 20 minutes.
- Leave to cool fully before peeling off the macarons from the baking paper.
