At least, that's how they are supposed to look.
Today I decided to try my hand at these difficult desserts. I have often thought about attempting these petite cookies, but the recipes I've found are always so complicated and technical, often requiring a dozen things (like almond flour??) that I do not have. As a result, the only macarons I've ever eaten have been in France and frozen from a box purchased from Trader Joe's. Obviously, the frozen box kinds aren't up to snuff.
But anyway, I decided not to jump into the whole macaron thing with both feet just yet. Today at the grocery store, I procured a box mix for macarons.
Seriously, it's from a box; how hard can it be? I also went to the trouble of obtaining a special macaron baking sheet.
Look at that, you don't even have to worry about making the batter form circles on the pan. Who can screw up with so few things left to chance?
ME. They didn't look too bad when they went in the oven. Granted, I overfilled the circles a bit, but no big deal! It happens. So they'll be a tad misshapen.
Sigh. Not only did they merge into one another, I also burned them. I thought perhaps they'd still be usable, so I took a bite of one. It was like eating a spoonful of ash and chocolate sawdust, and I spent a couple minutes hacking up the particles.
Needless to say, the entire batch was unusable, and I threw them away. I tried another batch, and they came out mediocre.
They look more like whoopie pies, but they came out vaguely circular and were chewy. They didn't get the fluffy edges that macarons are supposed to get (see first picture), and the surface of the cookies was oddly porous instead of smooth. However, after two hours of baking, I was just happy to have something edible to show for my efforts.
I can't decide whether to try again or just let this dessert remain a magical mystery forever.
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