I Only Need One Good One to Photograph

For a while now, I've been wanting to try making macarons. They seem to have become trendy, based on all of the YouTube videos that have been posted in the last two years. They also seem to be commonly sold at chocolate shops, so during my Professional Chocolatier program, I kept seeing pictures of them in display cases at chocolateries and even stumbled upon packaging for them while conducting research for one of my assignments. While always in the back of my mind, though, they seemed like too much work whenever I was in the mood to make something. There's something about whipping egg whites that just puts a recipe in another category for me.

Then a few weeks ago, I was at Stokes and saw silicone macaron baking sheets. Impulsively, I bought them. And then they sat on my dining room table taunting me until finally I decided I must use them.

Now, everything I've read says that even professionals have trouble periodically with macarons, so you shouldn't be disappointed if they don't work the first few tries. Persistence is key. Fair enough, I thought. I only need one good one to photograph.

And so I separated eggs and sifted almond flour, I whipped and I folded. (As I wrote that, lyrics flashed through my head: "Now watch me whip. Now watch me nae nae...") And I piped.

And I waited.

And eventually, the skin formed and I was able to pop them into the oven to bake. Everything was going beautifully until I took them out. Some were cracked. Some were lopsided. Some seemed to be hollow. They didn't lift from the mat. I put them back in for a few more minutes. And then for a few more minutes. Finally, I gave up hope and took them out to cool, and then put the second tray in.

The second tray seemed to work a bit better, but it certainly wasn't a home run by any stretch of the imagination. Still, I only needed one good one to photograph, right?

I pulled the meringue cookies from the mat, trying not to break them, which proved more challenging than you might expect (considering the mat was silicone). And I whipped some blueberry buttercream to use as the filling, thinking it would pair nicely with the lemon flavoured meringue. And I piped and sandwiched my cookies, trying not to crack them or put a finger through them, before putting them in the fridge for 24 hours (which many say is the mandatory final step). There were more than a few casualties.

And when it was all done, I had one good one to photograph.

Okay, that's not quite true. I had more than one. But not many more. After all of that effort for so little output, there wouldn't be any sharing. (Sorry, peeps!)

I collected the cracked cookies and put them in tupperware for snacking (they still tasted great) and I rationed the remaining lemon macarons filled with blueberry cream cheese filling.

The following day, I did some research to see what might have gone wrong. As it turns out, silicone baking mats, though popular with their circular piping guides, are not recommended for macarons -- and they increase the baking time. I had overfilled them. I also found that I probably had underwhipped the egg whites (despite carefully following a recipe by Anna Olson). Finally, it's likely that I didn't fold my mixture enough.

Determined to master this, just a week ago, I tried making them again and was much more successful. I whipped to stiff peaks instead of soft, I folded the mixture until I could draw figure eights with the batter, and I adjusted the bake time (though I did still use the silicone baking mats). I used a lighter touch piping. And, I'm happy to say that, though it once again wasn't a home run, my yield was much higher the second time around.

I'm thinking third time's a charm...

Have you ever made macarons? How did your first attempt go?

Glazed Lemon Wafers

Yesterday, I was in the mood to bake. I wanted to make some lemon cookies. I was craving the lemon shortbread cookies with lemon glaze that my sister and I had at Gitano's in Corner Brook. They are to die for. As I searched the internet for lemon shortbread recipes, my mother (on the phone) said, "Is there one in the Cream of the West Cook Book?" Good question! I went to the cupboard and pulled down the book. There was indeed a shortbread recipe in the book and I imagined I could just add lemon zest and be done with it. But then I noticed on the same page a recipe for lemon wafers. Naturally, given my commitment to testing every recipe in the book, I opted to experiment with this new recipe.

The recipe was similar to a shortbread or sugar cookie recipe, with the addition of lemon juice and zest. In no time I had the dough ready. Since it was soft, I decided to wrap two discs of it in saran and chill it for a half hour before proceeding.

I rolled and cut the dough into small circles with scalloped edges. I assumed based on the recipe that they would hold their shapes. But I was wrong.

The end result (even when the cookies were chilled again before baking) were strangely flat and lace-like cookies. In fact, they looked like tuiles. I varied my baking technique (parchment, no parchment, cooler oven, hotter oven, chilled dough, etc) but in the end came out with the same lacy thin cookies.

Then I prepared a glaze for them. The recipe book included a strange vanilla glaze that probably would work in other instances, but I decided a lemon glaze would be better. So I whisked together some powdered sugar and lemon juice, spooned it over the top of each wafer, spread it so that each wafer was covered, and waited. When it hardened, I had my lemon cookies.




The glaze had settled into the holes and evened out the surface so that I had what looked more like a normal cookie to me. I give you the finished product:

And the verdict?

They tasted delicious. Buttery. Lemony. Sweet. Refreshing and rich. They were flaky and wafer thin. But even with the glaze over the top, they didn't look like much to write home to mom about. They also were nothing like the cookies from Gitano's (not that it matters). As my friend and I ate them after a feast of lobster and crab, my friend agreed with my assessment. They were the strangest cookies we'd ever seen, but they tasted great.

I must say, I wondered if there was something wrong with this recipe or if it had turned out as it should have. I took to Google. It turned out that there are other recipes for lemon wafers out there that produce similar results -- they seem to have been popular in the 70s. Alternatively, it could be that the measurements are off (more flour needed? less sugar?) and that's what happened. I'll never know -- and I'll probably never make them again -- but we did enjoy them.

Rating for flavour: 9/10
Rating for recipe/end result: 6/10

I will say that I just made a lemon curd sandwich with two of them and the whole thing was heavenly. YUM!

What's your favourite lemony dessert?