Lemon French Macarons

I think I made these a couple weeks after the first batch of macarons I made back in the summer. Why I am only getting around to posting these now, I have no idea, but late is better than never.

There were pros and cons to this batch. Appearance-wise they weren't nearly as pretty as the first ones, but they tasted better, and I took a few notes on what I did differently; what worked and didn't work.

For starters, the egg whites whipped up much stiffer than last time and had far more volume - I degreased the bowl carefully and added few drops lemon juice. But, this resulted in a far thicker batter, perhaps a bit too much. Maybe I didn't mix it enough to reach the 'molten' stage. Somehow, I ended up piping nearly 3 times as many macarons using the exact same recipe as last time!

I left them out to form a skin, but they didn't flatten out into pretty flat-topped discs, again probably because the batter was too thick. At least 2 dozen of them cracked during baking, so that meant lots of snacking...

All was not lost however. The taste and texture of the macarons were far better with more chewiness to crispiness than last time.

The macarons were filled with some raspberry buttercream and a dollop of lemon curd...

I forgot to mention that they also formed little feet, which is a sign that they are baking properly, but really they're supposed to be a lot taller...

The macaron baking has stopped for a while, since I'm the only one that seems to eat them, and they have such a short shelf life, and I tend to forget about them if I throw them in the freezer...right now there is more bread being made in Knitticrafty kitchen. I'll probably try them again some time in the spring, when I am craving for pretty pastel colours!