Macaroon Mania

I lied.  I said in my last entry that I wasn't going to bake anything else for Passover.  Well, I did.  I made these Raspberry Chocolate French Macaroons.  

I have been wanting to make these little pillows of heaven for sometime now, but have been somewhat intimidated.  I decided to go for it.  I read several blogs and websites which were a wealth of information and each had lots and lots of very good advice.  One of the best tidbits of info was to pre-draw the 1" circles directly onto the parchment.  I did just that.  I made an 11" template and traced the circles and then flipped over the parchment before piping my batter into little mounds.

However, I did have some difficulty with this process. First of all I used too big of a tip.  Too much batter oozed out, enabling me from making perfect "type A" mounds.  I had to let it go and just hope for the best.

Secondly, only one of the three cookie sheets that I had baked came out perfectly.  This particular tray of cookies didn't crack.  The other trays cracked and caved in, they were a disaster (sort of).

Also, I couldn't find raspberry extract.  I substituted orange flavoring and instead of making the cookies "pinkish" I made them more of a light orange.  Lastly, I really didn't like the ganache filling.  It was way too heavy and wasn't what I had imagined in my head.

All in all, I was not crazy about this recipe.  I am going to peruse other blogs as well as the Internet and see what turns up.  I am going to attempt these again.  They are way more easy than they appear and the upside to this whole experience is that  all three kids got involved.  

Both Eli and Isaac wanted to pipe their own designs and they had lots of fun with the not so perfect macaroons as well as the left over ganache.

Eli made a big crepe like shape and Isaac made "Sponge Bob" as he so adoringly called him.  Eli got super creative with his masterpiece and ate every last morsel.  Isaac, on the other hand, went for the simplest of treats, a chocolate covered strawberry.  It was a fun evening shared with two of my favorite people.