And a successful one. After quite a nice dinner I’m just having a cup of tea and munching on my creations. I’ve been wanting to learn to make them for a while, then last week I saw 2 blokes on GBBO making macaroons, which made me think- now, come on, get off your arse, woman.  My lovely Florian ordered a pastry thermometer for me, as the recipe I picked uses Italian meringue. It arrived on Monday and there were no more excuses.

I picked Dorota’s recipe for raspberry macaroons, as this lady has proven many times she knows what she’s doing.  Of course, mine look nowhere near as good as hers, but with the next attempt I’m going to invest in better food colourants. Aska recommends Wiltons, over £10 on Amazon, but she uses them a lot, so I’ll give them a try.

So, it took 2 hours of the cloudy afternoon, plus extra efforts to keep Izzie happy and busy with random kitchen equipment to play with.

I used 150 g of finely ground almonds, same amount of icing sugar, sieved and fine. Mixed with 60 g of egg whites and food colourant. The other 60 g of egg whites were being whipped in Kitchen Aid with 35 g of sugar, while 150 g of sugar and 50 ml of water were heating up on the stove, without stirring, but with the thermometer in. When the syrup reached 118 degrees I started pouring it slowly into the meringue, while beating slowly for about 6 minutes to cool it. Then, in 3 batches the meringue got mixed into the almonds bit, placed into the piping bag and then piped onto 4 trays ready with baking paper. I then left them to rest and dry slowly, nearly an hour. Then they baked for 12 minutes in 160 degrees.

The first one I tasted was still warm, but delightfully crunchy and nutty. For the next time I will know to pipe them and flatten them more than I did today and of course use better colour.

The cream was made with 250 g of mascaropne, 80 g of white chocolate- melted and 100 g of fresh raspberries. Dorota recommended 40 g of raspberries, I used more and I’m happy I did.

I’m very pleased with the results. Quite a lot of work, lots and lots of stuff to clean afterwards, but worth it, plus Florek will find a plate of lovely macaroons in the fridge, when he comes home from Yorkshire tomorrow.