So, what’s a macarön, I hear you ask? Well, a macaron is a shiny, posh, filled biscuity thing made of egg-whites and almond meal and currently very much in vogue, and a macaroon is a rough, rustic, old-fashioned biscuity thing made of egg-whites and coconut. This is a rustic but shapely, semi-filled biscuity thing made from egg-whites and almond meal, and thus neither fish, flesh or fowl. Which, actually, is good, because who wants fish, flesh or fowl biscuits? Let alone foul biscuits. That would be no good at all. Anyway, it’s a macarön, because it falls somewhere between the macaron and the macaroon and therefore deserves it’s own name.
It’s also a handy way to use up those egg-whites you set aside when you were making egg-yolk candies.
Also, I must admit, after seeing the truly stunning things Donnamarie did with her Easter eggs, I felt challenged! The least I could do was cunningly make two kinds of sweet Easter egg out of actual eggs – one using the yolk, and one using the white.
(I have to say, the things everyone has come up with for this challenge have absolutely blown me away)
These are faintly Middle-Eastern in their inspiration, because that’s how I feel about almond meal, and also, that’s where my local ingredients tend to lead me, but you could make them utterly British with raspberry jam and vanilla, or Sicilian with lemon zest and blood orange marmalade… the possibilities are endless.
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6 egg whites (and you know what to do with the yolks, right?) 525 g almond meal (you may want a little more if the dough is too wet) 200 g caster sugar 250 g icing sugar 2 tablespoons of pistachio and cardamom sugar, if you have it, or use 2 tsp cardamom and make up the bulk with ground almonds or ground pistachios. 1-2 tsp rosewater or orange flower water apricot or fig jam, for the yolks.
I’m strangely lethargic this week. I think I’m still recovering from the intense concentration of last week’s course. Anyway, I’ve been mooching around on my last week of leave, not doing very much, and not even having the energy to feel properly guilty about it! I did, however, do a little bit of baking this morning. You see, a friend of mine has just had keyhole surgery, and is at the bored-out-of-her-skull-but-too-weak-to-do-much phase of recovery, so I’d arranged to bring lunch and spend the afternoon.
, which I think is one of the best Women’s Weekly Cookbooks out there (not that I have anything against their other books, but I tend to grow out of their savoury ones, whereas their baking books never stop being useful).
