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Not quite macarons but...


This is the best alternative I got short of flying to London and buying the mini-macaron tray off Paul whenever the urge to eat these cookies strikes. I've had a couple of disasters making macarons before, so I did two things differently this time. One, I baked on parchment rather than directly on my nonstick baking tray. Two, I used a recipe by bakingbites that uses half the egg whites to bind together almond meal and sugar, and only makes meringue of the other half.

And one thing I learnt. There are some recipes you can't scale down too much. Nicole used 4 egg whites, I used one which means I was trying to beat 1/2 an egg white into stiff peaks. Doesn't work. Take my word for it, you can't get volumes from egg whites if only your mixer tips touch them. So instead of fluffly macarons with feet, I got chewy almond cookies.

They didn't look like macarons but they sure tasted like them. I was so sure I will fail that I hadn't even thought of a filling. But even almost-macarons need to be sandwiched. So I melted some cherry jam to fill my macarons. Just the right flavor blend for these chocolate and almond goodies.
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Comments

CurryLeaf said…
Wow,they look good Simran,but yes,scaling down may not work in sme recipes.Great Job
June 15, 2009 at 6:34 PM
lubnakarim06 said…
Hmmm they looks gr8 yaar....
June 15, 2009 at 7:42 PM
Rush said…
looks great to me!!
June 16, 2009 at 12:22 AM
Sunshinemom said…
Did you read Helen's tips on it? David Lebovitz has done a great one too. My second attempt had feet but the top was brittle. Will give you company with the next attempt:). So long as they tasted good I guess it is alright and enough motivation to go on trying!
June 16, 2009 at 5:33 AM
Bindiya said…
I am craving these right now!
June 21, 2009 at 8:57 PM
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