Macaron mishaps | Ayesha

Afternoon lovelies! 

So this week I made two batches of macarons. (The French sandwich-looking variety, not macaroons as in coconut macaroons). This is what they should have looked like:

Image from Laduree

In actual fact, this is how they turned out:

Attempt 1 - with my friend Katie

It was a very intense afternoon when my sister and I decided to bake some. After one failed attempt with my friend (where it failed in the presentation department but not in taste), here is the blow-by-blow account of the second attempt with Zahra;

• We started at 1.45pm.
• We forgot to keep some egg whites separate as the recipe instructed.
• We made double the mixture just so we could keep some egg whites separate.
• We added red and yellow food colouring in the hope that they would turn out orange. We poured, then poured some more. The mixture turned a very pale mint green. Perplexed expressions were exchanged. We added more yellow. It turned the colour of dough. Not impressive. New, perhaps in-date food colouring needs to be purchased.
• At 3.30pm we finally put them in the oven.
• We finished at 4.30pm.

No wonder macarons are expensive at £30 or so for a box of 12. I would charge more just for the sheer amount of hard work that has to go into making them! This is how they turned out:

Attempt 2

Nevertheless, if I had another afternoon free then I would make them again, but using a completely different recipe to BBC Food (or at least... follow the recipe exactly...) because the taste was worth it. 

Until next time!