macaron madness

this week: red-bean macarons, lemon curd macarons. I had the idea (genius, if I do say so myself) to colour and flavour the red bean cookies with beet powder. The sweet earthy flavour of the beets, diluted by all the confectioner's sugar and almond powder that comprise most of the cookie, tastes pretty similar to the homemade adzuki bean paste that fills them. The beet powder does have thickening properties, though, which means next time we make beet cookies perhaps I won't actually beat the eggs quite as stiff as I normally would.

Lemon cookies have tiny bits of lemon zest mixed into the sugar and almonds and let stand overnight for flavours to meld; homemade lemon-curd filling.

and last week we made rose cookies with rose-cream-cheese filling. The cream cheese overwhelmed the rose a bit; next time we'll have to just make a buttercream...or figure something else out. Still good, though - and so pink!

We've been using this recipe for our base, working with 28 Tbl. powdered sugar, 8 Tbl ground almonds, and 1Tbl flavouring (27/8/2 for beets) for dry ingredients and 3 egg whites beat with 2 Tbl granulated sugar and a pinch of cream of tartar (plus food colour) for the wet. We let them stand an hour before baking and they develop a great skin. It's working amazingly well, even in this wet northwestern winter.