Cutesy macarons

I’m a sucker for cute food so I signed up for a series of classes. 

First class for the year is the Sanrio macaron class. 

せんせい’s

Nicely decorated macarons

Mine! Raw product

Baked! 

Time for decoration

Done! 

Initially when I asked the big girl if she wanted to go, she lamented that it’s a waste of money when one can find recipes online. She is not wrong but I did mention that sometimes we do learn from in person lessons. 

Today, I learnt that :

1) baking macarons on a baking paper vs silicone mat is different. The latter requires longer baking time. 

2) whisk meringue until I see an inverted hook in the whisk and in the mixture in the bowl. I usually use my hunch. 

3) when folding in the almond mixture to the meringue, one needs to be gentle. Do not press so hard otherwise the almond flour 会出油. Which is also why they don’t recommend keeping almond flour in room temperature. 

4) after the folded meringue n almond mixture is done. I’m suppose to press out the air around the bowl. I need to press out the air and ensure I am able to get the wave. Otherwise the macaron can be hollow inside. 

5) different icing sugar has different content of cornstarch which affects the macaron. Who knows? 🤣

Even without doing such tedious process, my macarons always turn out well with feet. No wonder a lot of people say their macarons are never successful. Teacher Hana asked who have baked macarons before, quite a number of us put up our hands. I’m the only one with success stories. “Ok teacher move over. I’ll take over the class” I believe I was really lucky, but perhaps it’s the easy one circular macaron that I always make. Piping the Sanrio characters wasn’t easy for me. 

Needless to say when teacher Hana was talking about icing sugar, Shirley came over and asked me what icing sugar I use.