BLACK SESAME MACARONS

black sesame macarons with black sesame buttercream filling

Now that my battle with the various macaron recipes is over, I can relax and enjoy experimenting with the different flavour combinations one can achieve with these little sandwich cookies. I've got the "macaron bug" and I'm trying different flavours with my trusty basic macaron recipe. I'm starting to get the feel of making these cookies and it's getting easier with every batch I make. This is heartening because initially, they can seem quite aggravating and temperamental if you do not have a solid recipe from which to work. macarons waiting for the oven to heat up

I purchased a sesame seed grinder at Daiso for $2 (what else? everything's $2!) and used it to grind the black sesame seeds. It was a cinch. The recipe went together smoothly and quickly and I didn't even have to wait hours for a skin to form. In fact, I threw caution to the wind and I put the macarons in with a tacky skin! Daredevil, eh?

macarons, straight from the oven

After dickering with a whole bunch of different techniques, I was able to finally arrive at a combination of techniques which allowed me to make macarons at ease and as quickly as possible. This was so great because I didn't have to "age" my egg whites, I used commercially ground almonds, I didn't use a sugar syrup, and I didn't wait for skins to form on the macarons. I'm now able to get macarons, with "feet", smooth tops with no cracks and a delicate shell exterior and tender and every-so-slightly chewy interior. They taste fantastic and I'm getting consistent results. I mean, why wait hours for egg whites to age? I used them at room temperature, but that's the only concession I made. I even cheated a bit by heating the whites over a bowl of warm water. The egg-whites couldn't tell that I didn't take them out hours ahead of time. Geesh!

the macarons created feet! (without even having to wait hours for a skin to form: bonus!)

I would say that the macarons, complete with the buttercream, were a tad too sweet for my liking. I generally don't like things as sweet as this. That being said, they were still addictive and I couldn't stop myself from wanting to pop more of them in my mouth. They kind of just melt in your mouth so quickly. Next time, I will doctor the buttercream by reducing the sugar. The shells themselves were not too sweet. They were just right.

My next experiment will be raspberry and white chocolate macarons

please see here for my recipe