When Life Gives You Lemons, Eat It with Ice Cream!

So, I set out to make a batch of macarons... I went through all my usual steps, with too many glitches for my taste, and it definitely didn't have the ending I expected....

So, this is the recipe out of my recipe book, which usually yields pretty great results!

I would like to emphasize:
1.  Using room temperature eggs that aren't farm fresh
2.  Making sure the almond flour isn't course using the food processor until the flour becomes fine
3.  Using parchment paper!
4.  Leaving 2 inches between each macaron when piping because they flatten about double the size and easily connect with eachother!

I used these ingredients:

And (irresponsibly) baked (while watching Curb):

I was going for a Tiffany blue color, one that I haven't tried before!

Things that went wrong:
1.  Yolks didn't separate from egg whites smoothly
2.  I beat the egg whites for about half an hour forgetting to add the sugar (overbeat)
3.  I didn't have parchment paper, so I thought I could pull it off with greased aluminum foil
4.  I did not time ANYTHING right! (Was in the middle of the Game of Thrones season finale; therefore, my mind was being occupied not by the baking time at all, so I overcooked my first batch, and undercooked the second)

The results: no decent macaron shells  :(

 

An overcooked batch (as shown by the appetizing burnt green color)                        
Not bad as normal cookies BTW ;)










Along with an undercooked batch (crushed and pushed to the sides of a teacup)
At least the color was a success in this one!




I once ate a macaron filled with ice cream at Michael Simon's Lola restaurant in downtown Cleveland, and I've loved the combo of ice cream and macaron meringue ever since!

Voila!  A macaron ice cream bowl!!!!  Macaron meringue combines surprisingly delectably with ice cream! (In this case, butter pecan!)

Is my staging impressive?  I need to get more modern things.  Or antique.  Both.  My house items are clearly ones I took from my mother who loves this renaissance type of style.

Hopefully I'll be back with some normal macarons!

bm