300 French Macarons

French Macarons (yes, one "o", it's French) have become quite popular stateside in the past couple years.  They were supposedly going to take the place of cupcakes, but instead I think they have become partners in crime.  Anyway, I offered to make them for Ashley's wedding favors specifically because I wanted to learn how to make them (rumor had it, they ain't easy), I'm a sucker for cute, miniature pastries, and I thought they would fit perfectly with her garden chic decor.  We needed 300 to fill 150 bags with two cookies each.

I enlisted Nick, my pastry partner at Fresh Fields, to teach me the ways of the French macaron.  He is French, after all!  Still waiting for the language to magically rub off on me...Turns out, if you can make a meringue, YOU CAN make French Macarons. 

Nick weighs our ingredients (in grams).  As with all baking formulas, the most accurate way to measure is by weight.  We came in on Sunday for this project, which is why Nick is looking very rocker-esque.

 The egg whites get whipped until fluffy but not dry, before I start slowly adding granulated sugar to create a glossy meringue.

 At this point we added yellow food coloring, hinting at the lemon buttercream with which the macarons would be filled.

Next, we fold in almond flour, powdered sugar, and powdered egg whites, for stability.  The batter becomes quite thick.

Using a pastry bag fitted with a large round tip, the batter is piped onto cookie sheets lined with parchment paper.  They get a 30 minute nap to dry and form a thin crust before going into a medium oven.  We repeated this process four times to ensure we had plenty of extras, as I shipped the shells overnight to Oregon.  We had 80 extra pieces, and I would say we lost about that many from breakage in the mail.

Into the inferno!  The yellow ended up fading more than I had anticipated during the baking process, so I lightly airbrushed all 600+ after they cooled!

 The final product.  Not the greatest picture, so I'm hoping Amanda, the photographer, got something better.  Sous Chef Dawn packaged all of these for me while I worked on the cakes.  I only had to beat her for complaining twice!  There was extra lavender left over from the cake, so we put a pinch in the bottom of each bag, which lightly infused the cookies and smelled incredible when you untied the bag!  Thanks for the help, Mom, you done good :)

A fabulous DIY idea Ashley found:  Paint old window panes with chalkboard paint.  This was part of the cake display.  Stay tuned for more about the fabulous cakes!!!

-Rachel