Sunday's Recipe Share -- French Macarons

I have a bad habit of trying new recipes for parties or when we have friends over.  So, for my son's college graduation party, I decided to have a go at making French Macarons.  I wanted to make these a little selfishly after discovering they were gluten free.  I almost chickened out though after reading about how hard they could be to make, but figured, if they didn't turn out, I had other things for back up.

Are these healthy?  Not exactly, but they are made from egg whites, almond flour and sugar--not horrible, and they are small--at least mine were.

Well, I got lucky and they came out pretty darn good. (much better than the picture shows)  Do they look like the those on Food Network?  No, but that's why they get paid the big bucks and I don't.

I followed the recipe from Food Network Magazine.  I did make two gutsy substitutions--I didn't have any superfine sugar, so I just ran what I had through a sieve (which really did nothing), and (after much research on the subject) I decided to use liquid egg whites--they whipped up beautifully.  Next time I want to experiment further and try making them with powdered coconut sugar--a choice I personally prefer over refined white sugar.

I also learned the difference between macaroons (which I also made) and macrarons in this article:  Macaroons vs Macarons

I used orange gel food coloring (mixed into the egg whites before whipping) and blackberry preserves for the filling (I was trying to go with the Illini theme). I was going to make a second batch in blue with apricot filling, but ran out of time.

I made them a couple days ahead (the entire filled cookie) and froze them.  They had that outside crunch and inside chew that a macaron should have--they were really delicious. I will definitely make these again.

One note that every source I looked at mentioned was this, "Do NOT skip the sifting--it is really important!"  So, I didn't.

Here's the recipe:  French Macarons (although they spell it Macaroons in the recipe).