Episode 32 – Pistachio Macarons

Episode 32
January 9, 2011
Pistachio Macarons

“Macarons?” You must be thinking, “Doesn’t he mean macaROONs – you know like the coconut ones?”  Oh no, I mean macaRONs – like macaroni without the I, or so I’ve gathered.  This was actually a viewer requested episode (via Petits four glace picture) and I made the same mistake.  I never knew what those little cookies were called.  To be honest, I always avoided them because they are typically brightly colored and I’ve always for some reason equated brightly artificially colored treats to the roses on a grocery store birthday cake.  I’ve done these cookies wrong.  I am totally in love with these little guys and I am totally addicted.

Macarons when they come out perfectly. Taken from discoverparis.net

This episode is deceptively short.  Sure you get to see a mere 18 minutes but in reality it took a good 3 hours.  1 of those hours was letting them rest on the table at room temperature.  1 hour and 30 minutes (maybe I’m exaggerating a little) was spent shelling and peeling the skin off of those pistachios.  NOT FUN.  No, not fun at all.  Blanching them in boiling water for 2 minutes worked wonders for making the skin easier to peel but because there were still so many to peel it just seemed endless.  My problem was that I couldn’t find peeled unsalted pistachios.  The peeled pistachios were salted while the pistachios still in the shell were unsalted.  I figured at the time, “What could it hurt to shell and peel them myself?”  Needless to say I’ll probably by the peeled pistachios, salted or not, next time.  I’m thinking washing them in cold water first will probably help remedy most of the salt.  Even better, I would try to find pistachio flour or pistachio meal and save myself even more time.  After all four ounces of pistachios is the same as four ounces of pistachio flour.  Don’t you just love weights?

As I said before I have never made this cookies before, let alone eaten them, so I had to do some googling to educate myself.  Instantly I thought, this sounds a lot like toasted almond japonaise.  One of the first blogs I found during my research, Serious Eats, may disagree slightly with such a generalization.  One of the blog posts is written by a very dedicated macaron fan and it was actually very enlightening.  Not only does she describe the macarons themselves, but also a brief history of macarons and what she looks for in the perfect macaron.  This is some very interesting reading so I strongly recommend taking a look at what she has to say.

For one reason or another, I decided to use the recipe from a different blogger on their site.  The recipe I used is actually from a book called Unforgettable Desserts by Dede Wilson (if you want to get the book, get it on amazon.  I spent $30 at Borders and it’s on amazon for $6.  If only I had decided to make them last Monday!)  The author calls the macarons french-style macaroons which probably further adds to the confusion between macron and macaroon.  One interesting link between this recipe and coconut macaroons is the use of egg whites as opposed to the whole egg.  In the recipe, the author also notes that the pistachio powder you create has to be very very fine in texture.  Make sure that if you do try to grind up your pistachios over and over again that you always have a couple tablespoons of powdered sugar in there as well.  The powdered sugar will help dry up some of the moisture so you don’t accidentally make pistachio paste.

For you petits four fans this little cookie sandwich would qualify as petits four demi-sec.  Demi-sec means semi-dry and are usually cookies that have a little bit of jam in the middle like jam thumbprints or raspberry spritz cookies.

Even though this recipe makes pistachio macarons I said be a little adventurous and try a different kind of nut!  Hazelnut or almond would be great I bet!  You may need to adjust the recipe a bit to make chocolate macarons so the cocoa powder isn’t completely overwhelming.  Despite how long it took to peel the pistachios this recipe is actually not that bad when it comes to prep.  All it is is a meringue with a nut powder folded in, piped, baked, and filled – all pretty easy.  The filling this recipe has is also very easy to make – but don’t hesitate to use your own filling.  Keep in mind, the recipe as it is doesn’t need to be refrigerated (store at room temperature in an air-tight container for up to four days) so avoid using fillings that need to be refrigerated for best results.  You don’t really want to put a meringue in the refrigerator for moisture reasons.  Also, since this recipe has no flour I guess it would qualify as gluten-free, although the way I’m constantly baking in my kitchen, it hardly qualifies as a gluten-free facility.

Anyway, here’s the recipe for pistachio macarons and enjoy the video below!  Thanks for watching – and let me know if there’s anything you want me to research and demo for you!  I love hearing from my viewers!