Good afternoon class, my name is Staff
Sergeant Berry, I will be your instructor
today for this block of instruction.
Today we are going over a classical dish
called the French macaron there are many
different types of macarons there's an
Italian macaron a French and a Swiss
macaron this application we are using
the French mixing method okay so the
ingredients that you need for this
French macaroon are included as follows
we have almond flour, we have
confectioner sugar, granulated sugar, egg
whites, vanilla extract and cream of
tartar. So we will use the mixer today
for this application so first off right
off the bat to our first step we're
going to get the egg whites nice and
frothy so we want to put our egg whites
straight into the mixer and this is our
egg whites.
Alright, so we just want to mix
gradually until the mixture becomes nice
and frothy, so we go from a clear liquid
to a frothy liquid.
We can crank up the speed a little bit
to get that emulsion going. basically what
we're doing is we're whipping the egg
whites to incorporate air and incorporating
air is gonna make the mixture nice and
frothy. Frothy is what we're looking for
and in our first stage of going through
the soft peaks to stiff peaks because
that is we would like to achieve at this
moment
so once we have our mixture and it has
began to get a little bit frothy we
want to incorporate our vanilla extract,
and our cream of tartar.
Once we have incorporated those two
ingredients then we're going to
gradually add our granulated sugar. If we
over mix it and whip it too much it will
not react the way we want it to.
So as the mixer is moving we will still
use
Make sure your sugar is well incorporated.
And we'll do about a third at a time.
It's easier to achieve it that way if
you split it into thirds, it's easier
just to add a third at a time. Once that
portion is incorporated add the next
third. Alright, so I add the next third.
Alright, so we will continue to mix
this process until we achieve we want to
be a soft peak. The soft peak is where
the color of the egg whites have formed
and it's going to have a nice peak that
will fold over at the top that's what's
considered a soft peak. A lot of
times you can hear the change of the
noise of the mixer and you can
understand, as a well-seasoned chef will
know, when a soft peak is formed and when a stiff peak is formed just by the
tone of the mixer. And we will crank it
up just a little bit
just to expedite the process.
Alright so we can see the color
changing from the yellow opaque color to
a nice whiter color and it's going to
get shinier. The cream of tartar is
going to give it that body and that
shiny texture. The chemical reaction will
actually make it thicken as well.
So once you can get a soft peak you can
actually see the lines of the mixer of
the whip attachment going through the
lines of the egg whites and you can
actually see them forming so you can see
that you're achieving a nice soft peak.
And we're just gonna keep going
through the stages until we get a nice
stiff peak, and the reason why we want to
achieve a stiff peak is when we fold in
these other two ingredients and with the
stiff peak, it will loosen as we fold
them in together the mixture will loosen
a little bit. We want to call what is
created a slat, so I will show you the
folding process of that nature. So this
one I just wanted to show you the form
of it at this point you can add food
color which we will have a pink macaron
at the end of the block of instruction.
But for this purpose I wanted to just
show you the the mixing process so you
can actually see it so we can stop it
and then we can check it to see where we're
at. So the easiest way is stick your finger in
and see the form see how it folds over
that means we're at a soft peak. So we're gonna continue our mixing process
until we get a nice stiff peak. Now, be
very careful there's a thin line that
you don't want to overmix it; you over
beat it, your egg whites and your product
will actually break. We don't want that
to break. Okay so we just want to keep an
eye on it entirely through the process.
It's not something that you can turn on,
set it and forget it and leave. You
actually would want to pay close
attention to it and watch it go through
the process
all right we can see it thickening
we're almost there. Break it up one more
just a nice whip.
Now, this is the equipment
that we will use in the classroom, if you
were at home trying to you know
duplicate this recipe is okay to use a
hand mixer as well, alright we'll go a
little bit longer just to,
the way that you will know if you over
mix it is the actual egg whites will
separate so it will separate from the
form where it's creating the spiral
will actually separate and you'll see
gaps in the egg whites and the mixture
with the sugar and the powdered sugar.
So approximately if you were at the time
this would this would take about a five
to seven minute process to actually
achieve a nice stiff peak with your
with your mixtures already mise'd out. As
you can tell our mixture was all mise'd out.
mising like a champion.
all right at this point we can check
that we can remove it and actually
visually see that it has
a nice stiff peak there we go nice and
stiff it doesn't move after you pop it
it doesn't move okay so for the next
process that we use we want to
incorporate the confectioner sugar,
powdered sugar as you may call it, or ten
times into almond flour you know both of
these items have already been pre sifted
ok
all right so do this mix gently with
your hands
mix the process as we have stated
before when we incorporate this into our
bigger bowl and we actually fold the
ingredients together we will do this in
thirds okay so we're gonna take our whipped meringue
See that nice
shiny color so we're looking for that's
the cream of tarter giving it that shine
so we have this process and then we're
going to incorporate our almond flour
and our confectioner sugar in thirds
all right so the way we fold our we're
going to take the spatula they were
going to go in a circular motion from
the outside in all right and turn the
bowl as you do it. Now, when you fold into the product you're actually
incorporating air, it's
going to make it a more delicate product
if you just mix it you will lose all the
processes you've already tried to
achieve so it's a little more
time-consuming but it's better to
incorporate all the product to make sure
that it's incorporated so remove all the
excess from the side to make sure that
you get all that dry ingredient that
you're trying to achieve so as you're
doing this you're removing any lumps or
anything that can occur although you
sift your ingredients those things can
happen so we go another third
alrght incorporate those dry
ingredients
you can give it a little whip if you
like
and after about 10 or 20 minutes this
will wear out your arm so that's why us
in the military go to the gym right? So as
we're incorporating this once we fully
get all the ingredients in there we will
have what is called a slat and I will show
you that process.
and it's gonna thicken but you're
going to continue to whip it once you
continue and you keep whipping it, it
will eventually loosen up as you're incorporating
air and you're incorporating warmness.
so once you do this all, if we checked it
now it's probably not ready because we
want a slack of the slack means is if
you take a spoon and it slides off its
sliding off a little bit but we want it
to actually pour just a little bit more
okay because we're going to pipe this
item
there we go see that nice pour that's called
a slack that's what we're looking for so
that's finished with that product
what we're going to do with that is
we're going to take that put that into a
piping bag with a nice round tip and
take it and put it on a Silpat a pan a
sheet pan with a Silpat take in a piping
bag and pipe quarter sized circles all
right full size circles you're gonna
alternate with the levels that you do
because when you bake it in the oven it
will spread so we want to put those on a
pan all the way down the line a full pan
and once you're done you smack the pan
on the table and what that does is
release the air bubbles releases the air
bubbles out and brings them to the
surface so anything that cooks its gonna
remove that so you're not gonna have any
bubbles or any cracks or anything like
that and we will let that set out for
approximately about 25 to 30 minutes and
at that time it will create a nice
little skin a little layer on top and
you're gonna actually feel the
difference if you poked your finger on
the top of the macaron it will it will
not leave a mark so it will have created
a little skin at that point we put it in
the oven at 290 degrees
Fahrenheit on a regular oven conventional
oven for approximately 12 to 15 minutes
turning it every six minutes alright
so the end state that we get, voila,
for French macarons all right
once you remove them from the oven you
allow them to cool on a cooling rack
thoroughly and they will set this is a
nice little wafer there are different
applications on how to present it one of
the main applications we like to use is
the sandwich method okay so every time
that you pipe these out you're gonna get
a lot better at it as you go but for
beginners you will get different size
and shapes that's okay you would just
find its mate or partner in crime
and sandwich those two together what we
sandwich it together with is different
fillings you can use a Bavarian cream
filling you can use another meringue
filling for this application we have
created a lemon curd so I will tell you
the ingredients that go into the lemon
curd and those are as follows we use
nine egg yolks, we use 150 grams of lemon juice, fresh squeezed lemon juice and
from that lemon we still get two grams
of lemon zest glucose, we use glucose.
So glucose is very similar to as you
would say corn syrup in that nature,
glucose is 250 grams of that and 125
grams of unsalted butter. So the easiest
process for this is we're going to take
a double boiler, you will put the pan on
top of the double boiler and you will
add all the ingredients until it has
dissolved and melted except for the
butter you add all the ingredients
heat it up to 180 degrees where it has
thickened you will then strain that
product then add your butter and nice
get a nice melted sheen on top and
that will incorporate into a nice thick
product so you let this chill overnight
and the end state you will have for that
which I already have prepared is our
lemon curd okay this nice filling so the
easiest way to apply these two together
is we're going to take two that match
remove one, bottom, and just spoon on top.
Just a little bit, okay, add the other, top,
right on top and we will twist and let
those set.
This is Staff Sergeant Barry and that
concludes my block of instructions for
the French macaron
