Third time around is not a perfect charm.

I'm really starting to feel as though my little macarons and I are getting to know each other better; our relationship is really improving and we didn't even have to go to therapy or counselling or anything. Let me explain.

After piping them out and slamming the pans on the counter as required, I was sad to see that they had little tails on top that weren't settling out. What isn't sad is that without consulting the Trouble Shooting section of the bible,  I was able to recognize why there were little peaks in the centers and also why my shells appeared slightly lumpy: Under-Macaronner. I did not j-fold the dry ingredients in to the wet ingredients for long enough, thereby creating a meringue that was too strong. But if you remember from my previous entry, if you over mix, you'll have a different set of problems. So I suppose I don't know them suuuuuuper well yet, but it's getting better.

Despite the technical problems, they looked terribly cute and tasted like heaven. I found gel food coloring which creates stronger, more saturated colors than liquid food coloring (note the whimpy light pink of my previous entry). And I had better luck with even baking. While some still slid and created baseball caps, i had quite a few that turned out pretty nice. I had to rotate the pans during baking way more often than I should have to but that's okay because I never stray too far from the kitchen during baking anyway.

My inner-therapist told me that since we made progress this time around, we should be rewarded so I made some proper chocolate ganache to fill them with. They were enjoyed, very quietly (I think the silence was a good sign) late one evening by a group of us huddled together around the kitchen island at my brother's house. I felt proud and very pleased because some of the best times in life are spent gathered in kitchens and this time around it was thanks to a semi-successful third attempt at my petits macarons.