Daring Bakers October Challenge: Pumpkin Spice Macarons

The 2009 October Daring Bakers? challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming?s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.


I think the first macaron I had was from Dean and Deluca, and I just grabbed it because I had heard so much about them and had never tried one. But the cookie was really crunchy like a meringue and I didn't really like the texture at all, so I just figured that I didn't really like macarons.


Then I went to Paris last spring, and I went to Laduree. I went in a got a small bag of about four macarons, and as I was walking away I pulled one out to try it. I literally stopped walking and just stood there smiling because it was amazing, and I realized that I had just never had a good macaron and this is what they should be like.


I've been reading recipes and wanting to try to make macarons since then, but it always sounded really complicated and finicky. So when I read that this month's challenge was to make macarons, I was super excited.


Originally I was going to try to make a pistachio flavored macaron, because that was one of my favorites from Laduree, but then I got into a really autumn-type mood this past weekend, and decided I wanted to try something involving pumpkin. I had seen a recipe for Saffron Macarons with Pumpkin Filling on Tartelette, so I borrowed her recipe for the pumpkin cream cheese filling. For the actual shells, I decided to just use the basic recipe but added about a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice.


I have to confess that my first two sheets of cookies completely stuck to the silcone mats and did not have feet and I ended up scraping most of them into the trash. But the second batch, made on parchment paper, was a whole different story. They had feet! I think I actually just undercooked the first batch, because I ended up cooking the second batch about 5 minutes longer than the recipe suggested and they came out perfect. Maybe not as puffed as I'd like, but it was a humid rainy day, so I'll just blame it on that.



Claudia Fleming's Macarons

Equipment required:
? Electric mixer, preferably a stand mixer with a whisk attachment
? Rubber spatula
? Baking sheets
? Parchment paper or nonstick liners
? Pastry bag (can be disposable)
? Plain half-inch pastry bag tip
? Sifter or sieve
? If you don?t have a pastry bag and/or tips, you can use a Ziploc bag with the corner snipped off
? Oven
? Cooling rack
? Thin-bladed spatula for removing the macaroons from the baking sheets
? Food processor or nut grinder, if grinding your own nuts (ouch!)

Ingredients
Confectioners? (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)
Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)
Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)
Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners? sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners? sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.
2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don?t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It?s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.
5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).
6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored. (Note: Mine needed about 5 extra minutes)
7. Cool on a rack before filling.

Yield: 10 dozen.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Filling
(Note, since I only ended up really using one tray of cookies, the amount of filling for this recipe is pretty small. If you want to fill an entire batch of cookies with this filling, you should double or triple this recipe.)

2 oz pumpkin
2 oz cream cheese, softened
2 tbsp confectioners sugar
1/8 tsp cloves

Mix together and spread on macaron shells.