Beaten by an Egg White

N RHQ’s podcast studio has witnessed plenty of strange events, but probably none was so odd as the day I frosted a cake in there. The cake, a peanut-butter-and-chocolate one, was for a departing co-worker, and I’d bought a hand mixer to help me get the job done. It, the cake, had sat in the office fridge overnight, and now there I was, at some ridiculously early hour, standing in the podcast studio beating heavy cream, sugar, and cocoa powder into something spreadable. Why I didn’t do it in the NR kitchen, I’ll never know, and I still can’t believe the inestimable Jack Fowler didn’t come investigate the whirring noise emanating from the room near his desk.

All this to say, five years later, that hand mixer is still going strong, and it saved my bacon during my recent weekend macaron-baking spree.

These fussy confections have been on my “to make” list for a few years now, and without really knowing what to expect, I started my research. Just as with my epic chocolate-cake adventure, I turned to Claire Saffitz to learn if, and how, to tackle this recipe.

Despite watching her video carefully, in baking four batches of macarons over two days, I had each one turn out differently. And those four batches translated to 13 eggs, a pound of powdered sugar, a bag of almond flour, and quite a few hours spent staring at drying cookies. Actually, a large part of the time during the first batch on Saturday was spent whipping egg whites. I’m a nervous Nelly about my stand mixer, but I cranked it up on high for this occasion. To no avail. The bowl and whisk proportions were off just enough that a supposedly ten-minute process took nearly 40 — a mistake I did not repeat in the ensuing three batches.

There is something magical about beating egg whites into meringue — for that is indeed what you’re making. This pale, watery substance, when whipped with salt and sugar for just enough time, transforms into silky, glossy peaks right before your eyes. And then, because nothing is simple in French baking, you must add in your dry ingredients and crush out all the air in a process known as macaronage. Keep in mind: If you over- or underdo any of these steps, your macarons will fail. But, of course, you won’t know that until they’ve baked.

Piping came next, a process with which I have a fair amount of familiarity. What could go wrong? Quite a lot, especially if you gauge the macaron circumference incorrectly and forget that the batter will spread.

Oh dear.

There was no hope for it now, so I set the oversized cookies on the counter to dry and headed out for an event. Dry? Yes, dry. Macarons, to obtain their traditional flat-ish top, need to sit at room temperature and form a skin. This keeps them from puffing up, and the air is instead forced out the bottom of the cookie, forming the ruffly “shoe” distinctive to this dessert.

A few hours later, I returned to the apartment, pre-heated the oven, and popped the now-dry macarons in to bake. The result was . . . disappointing. Much too large and flat, and with a dreadful wrinkly top (a sign of too much fat in my cocoa powder, I think). Undaunted, I set out to try again. A quick trip to the local cake-decorating-supply store found me the proud owner of a new round piping tip — word to the wise: always find an excuse to buy new piping tips — and three bottles of gel food dye. A stop at the grocery store to restock on powdered sugar, and then another round of chocolate macarons was soon drying on the counter. These, too, had spread more than I’d planned, but I was making progress.

On Sunday, after gathering a few more supplies, I started afresh, this time with the goal of making batches of raspberry and then lemon macarons (thus the gel food dye). Except freeze-dried raspberries are elusive and expensive, so freeze-dried strawberries it was. This time, my piping hand was much steadier, and my red and yellow dollops spread just enough.

Wanting variety was my downfall, however, because these flavors required slightly different baking directions. For consistency’s sake, I’d have been better off making the chocolate version four times and refining my process. But life’s short enough as it is, and anyway, I needed an excuse to buy lemon curd from Trader Joe’s.

My flavors were spot on, thanks to lemon zest and the freeze-dried strawberries, but my baking techniques resulted in some underdone and then cracked shells. It was sad, but in both instances, I learned from my mistakes, and soon had enough salvageable shells to fill. Sunday afternoon in my apartment was macaron madness — they were drying on parchment paper all over the kitchen and living room. Everywhere you looked, there was a macaron in some stage of completion; even the fridge was full of the chocolate ones from the previous day, and bags full of rejected shells sat next to my popcorn maker.

Finally, the last shell was out of the oven and cooled, all the presentable ones had been filled, and I could tackle the dishes threatening to overflow the sink. All that was left was the curing process, in which the confections sit overnight in the fridge, letting the filling meld to the shell.

Now, however, I had a veritable mountain of macarons to dispose of — who would eat them? Luckily for me, Monday was a co-op day, a day I co-teach 13 students under the age of 13. We learn poetry, recite multiplication tables, and try to remember what the capital of Idaho is, and it is the highlight of my Mondays. So, armed with dry-erase markers and a container of macarons, I made my way to class.

No Parisian bakery worth its salt would even look at my humble creations, but I’m proud of my efforts.

And my co-op students? Delighted.