Attempting the French Macaron in Texas

I woke up this morning and got the idea in my head that its been too long since I made some macarons. Zac has also been bugging me about making them for a few weeks now so I decided that making some today would be a good idea (especially since he just took a test this morning).

I LOVE the the macaron recipe that I got from the Orson Gygi class we took back in April, but since it was adapted for high altitudes I made my own adjustments for this recipe in hot, humid, flat Texas. As luck would have it has been raining ALL day. So I was really scared the humidity would severely interfere with the texture and critical step of forming a skin on the macarons. And it did. Instead of my usual 15-20 rest period to wait for the skins to form before baking, I waited about 3 hours and got desperate so used my hair dryer to dry them out...and it worked! I spent about 30 seconds on each macaron and the end result...skins!!

Despite the success of the skins, somehow the macaron deities were not on my side today and they cracked. Of the thirty shells that I piped, only 1 stayed relatively smooth on top and began to show the beginnings of feet. So sad. Thankfully they tasted pretty close, and my very understanding and non-picky husband was kind enough to still be very happy that he came home to macarons even if they were the unsightly sort.

On a brighter note, the raspberry cream that I used to fill them with was divine and Zac admitted his favorite part of the macaron was the filling anyway...This was a little disheartening to me because the raspberry buttercream did ot take nearly as much effort as the macarons but as long as he's happy, I am too.

I guess I am back to square one and will be working on a macaron recipe that will be successful in humid weather.

Cooling and cracked

The lone macaron that had the beginnings of feet