It is my conviction that almost all baked goods are vastly superior when they are homemade, as opposed to bought in a supermarket.
This holds true even when the supermarket is upmarket, and the home baker is not particularly experienced. There is just something about mass-produced cakes, biscuits, pastry that cannot compete with their homemade counterparts.
With some notable exceptions. I have found bread to be unkind to the novice. I have often embarked upon a bread-baking project, in the full expectation of a wonderful outcome and been sadly disappointed. Another is macarons.
I can’t seem to make a go of Nigella’s pistachio macarons (from her Domestic Goddess book), although I really want to. They always meld together. I have been known to tear off a bit of the failed flat green chewy mat, smear over some of the pistachio buttercream I had already made up and eat it anyway.
I once bought a book entirely dedicated to making macarons, read it cover to cover, and still ended up with one big mess on the baking sheet.
A couple of years ago, when the macaron craze was at its height, I decided that I was going to conquer this tricky little biscuit, once and for all. I had time to spare and needed a project so I got to work. Several attempts later, I had managed to figure out my myriad mistakes and at last made a batch I was pleased with. I wrote down the recipe I had worked out. I made coffee macarons, chocolate macarons and pistachio macarons and then moved on with my life.
Three years later, I decided, on a whim, to make a batch of coffee macarons when I was having some friends and their babies around for afternoon tea. I made a cursory search for my notebook, couldn’t find it, and launched into making them, straight from the recipe. They were a disaster of epic proportions and, to make things worse, I’d, yet again, made up the filling (coffee buttercream) before waiting to see how the biscuits turned out. Happily I had the ingredients to hand for some coffee whirls and no one was any the wiser. (This recipe to follow in a future blog post)
I eventually found my original notes and developed the recipe for caramel macarons but I kept hankering after a pistachio macaron.
After many attempts, I hit on the winning formula: enough pistachio in the shells for a true pistachio flavour mixed with ground almonds for a proper macaron look and pistachio cream rather than buttercream so that they are suitably sweet but not sickly.
The only tricky part is judging the time in the oven: not enough, and they may deflate as they cool, too much and their unmistakeable green will turn to brown. Test them by tapping your nail on top after 10 minutes in the oven. There should be a little resistance. If there isn’t, leave them in but watch for when the edges start to colour and whip them out then.
(Whilst you’re here, how about sharing your email address with me so we can stay in touch?)
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Makes about 15 macarons, from 30 shells
Ingredients
Pistachio macaron shells
- 60g whole pistachios (plus extra for chopping and sprinkling on top of macaron shells)
- 140g icing sugar
- 75g ground almonds
- 80g egg whites (from about 2 large eggs)
- 5 tbsp caster sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Pistachio cream filling
- 200ml whipping cream or double cream
- 40g icing sugar
- 4 tsp pistachio nut butter
Method
Pistachio macaron shells
Prepare 2 baking trays with sheets of baking paper.
Place the icing sugar and pistachio nuts in a food processor and whizz until the pistachios are reduced to dust. Measure out your ground almonds into a medium bowl and tip in the pistachio and icing sugar. Use a whisk to combine them well.
Whisk the egg whites until they go opaque and then gradually add the caster sugar as you continue whisking. Keep going until the meringue is stiff.
Add the vanilla extract and fold into the meringue before adding the almond-pistachio-icing sugar mix in 2 goes, folding in until there are no streaks.
If the mixture is glossy and a soft dropping consistency, you can stop here. If the mixture seems stiff, then go ahead and ‘macaronner’ it, by using a spatula to press it against the side of the bowl 5 or so times.
Fit the smallest nozzle you have into a piping bag and fill your piping bag with the mixture.
Holding your piping bag vertically, pipe small circles of mixture, about 3cm in diameter, spaced about 5cm apart on the lined baking trays. The mixture will spread slightly.
If you would like to, you can sprinkle some chopped pistachios on top of half of the macarons.
Give each baking tray a good bang on the work surface to remove any big air bubbles and leave the macarons to dry slightly for 30 mins to 1 hour. They should have developed a thin skin in this time, which will stop the tops from cracking in the oven.
Heat your oven to 150°C and bake the macaron shells until they have risen and are just starting to colour, about 10-12 mins.
Leave them to cool completely before gently lifting them off the baking paper, or you risk leaving half of the shell behind.
Pistachio cream filling
Measure out the cream into a bowl and add the icing sugar.
Whisk until the cream just starts to thicken but is still soft, then fold in the pistachio nut butter.
Fit your piping bag with a large round nozzle and fill it with the pistachio cream.
Assembly and storage
Pipe cream onto the macaron shells without the chopped pistachios – these will be the bottom halves of the macaron sandwiches – and pop a macaron shell with chopped pistachios on top, pressing gently to stick them together.
Store the macarons in the fridge but let them come up to room temperature before eating.