Chocolate Raspberry Macarons

I've been wanting to make macarons for a while now. They always seemed so tricky and like they'd be a sure failure. Wikipedia says it itself, "Making macarons requires a great deal of discipline and is a process that is highly dependent on exactitude, technique, and proper equipment. For this reason it is a notoriously difficult recipe to master and a frustrating endeavor for the amateur baker." I read up on them before taking the plunge last weekend. When I told people what I was making, most people immediately thought of macaroons, the coconut cookie. The French macaron is a sandwich cookie. The tops and bottoms are a meringue cookie that is supposed to be crisp on the outside and chewy and moist on the inside.


My first attempt was surprisingly successful. The filling I used was a chocolate raspberry ganache. I think there were several key steps here. The first was bringing the egg whites to room temperature. Several recipes recommended leaving the egg whites out for 24 hours. That seemed to go against everything I ever thought about eggs...like that they needed to be refrigerated. I consulted with Chef Cynthia, and she said that while there's no harm in leaving them out, they probably only need to be out for an hour or so. The second step was after piping out the meringues was to let them dry out a little bit before putting them in the oven. I'm anxious to try these again in a variety of flavors.