Macarons, First Attempt

I've never made macarons before. I was just a consumer. My friend, Kim, introduced me to these delights one summer in Sacramento. She took me to Ginger Elizabeth where you can have an Ice Cream Macarons sandwich. Since then, I have consumed all sorts and flavors. The best savory ones I have had were from a client. They were from the little door in Los Angeles. A couple nights ago I dreamt I made some savory macarons.

Anyways, yesterday I was on a quest to find some black sesame powder to make the macarons. Luckily, they had it by a local grocery store. Making macarons you have to be precise. I actually didn't have a scale to measure things out but the recipe I found online used typical measurements. After searching high and low for the right recipe, I decided to go with the one I found on Amy's Food Adventures. She owns a dessert place in Toronto. I found her blog quite helpful since I no longer had to do any measurement conversion. Most of the ones I watched on YouTube used gram measurements. I also found this video from yoyomax12 on YouTube very helpful getting the right technique down.

When making macarons you have to wait until the batter is completely dry before you bake it in the oven. It was very humid today so I had to wait an hour and 20 mins for my drying process before I could bake these little delights. This is what they look like as they are drying.

I baked them for about 18 mins at 300 degrees F. And they turned out like so.

You have to let it cool completely before you fill them. I used a black sesame buttercream filling. I used Amy's Vanilla Bean Recipe but omitted the vanilla bean paste and used 4 tsp of black sesame powder instead.

Overall, for my first attempt I am happy that I got that nice egg shell appearance, but the foot wasn't as solid so I will need to troubleshoot that in the future. I also thought it was little sweet and wanted more nutty-ness from the black sesame. Next time, I may add less icing sugar and more almond meal or black sesame powder. I would also use a different filling, not a buttercream, perhaps a ganache.

The final product: Black Sesame Macarons with Black Sesame Buttercream.

Next, I am going to try making earl grey macarons...maybe.