My First Macarons & Using Up Your Egg Yolks Lemon Curd

Hurray some food blogging!

I've been a bit remiss since Christmas (ok way before then) even though I've been baking lots of things and making lots of things.

Macarons have been on my lists for ages and ages, our last house had the worse oven on the planet, it couldn't even cook a baked potato evenly so I wasn't trusting it with macarons. Since we have moved we have a nice shiny electric oven which keeps the temperature even and cooks things nice and quickly. I can now bake a whole cake in less than an hour and without checking it every 2 minutes impatiently.

This also means I can now make meringues, lemon meringue pie specifically! Yum.

I used the recipe over on The Catty Life, she embued me with confidence that I Can Do It. Macrons scared me a bit, maybe I read too much into them and worried about how hard they would be.

I didn't age my egg whites, like you should, because I forgot. I still got the taste of macarons and the airy inside, but I didn't get the longer for 'feet' and a thicker shell. You can make macarons with un-aged egg whites but they won't be as pretty!

Vanilla Macarons with Lemon Curd Filling 
recipe from the catty life 

100g ground almonds
200g caster or icing sugar (I used caster which was fine)
50g caster sugar
3 egg whites - preferably aged by leaving them in a bowl at room temperature for 24 hours.
squirt of vanilla extract

Whip your egg whites still they start to foam/turn white, then add in the 50g of caster sugar slowly to combine. Whisk further til you the eggs form stiff peaks, add in the vanilla extract.
Combine the almonds and the 200g of sugar in a bowl, mix, then carefully fold them in to the meringue mix, adding it in quarters til combined.
Using a piping bag dot the mixture on to a lined baking tray, mine were about 1.5 inches wide, they don't spread too much in the oven.
Leave for 30 minutes to an hour til the mixture sets a little, it should form a 'shell' on the top.
Bake at 150 degrees celsius for 15 minutes. Keep checking, the recipe says 10 minutes but I needed a bit longer.

Remove when cool by sliding a knife under each macaron.
Sandwich with lemon curd, eat four in a row like I did.

Lemon Curd
This lemon curd is great because you can use up your leftover egg yolks from the macarons.

3 egg yolks
100g caster sugar
juice and zest of one lemon
50 grams of unsalted butter, cubed

Beat the egg yolks and caster sugar in a heatproof bowl using an electric whisk til the sugar has dissolved.
Then place the bowl over a saucepan of boiling water, add in the lemon juice and zest plus the butter. Whisk to melt the butter, the eggs should start to thicken, keep whisking. Keep an eye on the heat as you don't want the eggs to scramble. The mixture is done when it coats the back of a wooden spoon - it will thicken further as it cools.
Immediately pour into hot sterilised jars (this actually makes one jar) and seal. Keeps for 2 weeks in the fridge, after opening.

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