Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Daring Bakers Challenge - French Macarons



The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

This challenge was not a vegan friendly one. In fact, the hostess pretty much said, Vegans, I don’t know what to tell you. Unlike American macaroons, French macarons are basically meringue sandwich cookies. Now I did previously have success making egg replacer meringue, but that was folded into a cake batter. This time I would need to fold almond flour into the meringue and bake it. Instead of agonizing over forming a perfect replica in vegan form, I decided to just have fun with my vegan interpretation.

I made meringue and tinted it orange. These will be Halloween cookies.


It freaks me out to use too much food coloring, so my orange is rather pale.

Rather than grind a whole cup of expensive raw almonds into flour, I used 1/3 cup ground almonds, 1/3 cup ground peanuts, and 1/3 cup ground….


Banana chips!

I folded the flour mixture into the meringue and piped the batter onto baking sheets and baked as directed. I have never eaten macarons so I’m not sure these are the proper texture. I can tell you that I ended up calling them *pillows* because they were super fluffy and soft with a slightly crisp edge.


I made a chunky peanut butter filling. Before I show you my final product, this is what real macarons look like:

Photo from davidlebovitz.com

Knowing I could not create anything remotely equal to those gorgeous cookies, I grabbed a few chocolate chips and created these little monster treats.



They are gluten free, tasted good, and were fun to bake, and they're spooky, right? So I count this challenge as a success. Also, please see Hannah’s perfectly successful vegan macarons – amazing!

16 comments:

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

BEYOND successful!

Lovlie said...

hahaha! so cute! I've never had a macaron either so I could not perfectly re-create it. Well I didn't have a clue either how to make them... Those little monsters are gorgeous though!

chocolate- Katie said...

Oh I love the little monster eyes! (Maybe because they're made of chocolate?)

Super-cute, Diann!

Andrea said...

Wow. I'm impressed. They do kind of look like scary little clams with eyes but they sound delicious. I agree with you about food coloring - I'd be afraid to eat the real macarons but I'd definitely eat your version!

Kris said...

I think yours turned out great, the texture looks dead on. As long as they taste good, who cares? You did much better than me- I opted out of this challenge, lol.

Oraphan said...

Those little monster treats are sooooooo adorable!!! What a brilliant idea! I give you an A+ for this challenge, I'm so impressed:)

snugglebunny said...

Can you win a prize for most creative interpretation of a dish? If so, you should win on this one. And I guess some things just cannot be veganized. But still cute.

urban vegan said...

I love macaroons. I am continually impressed by your "daring-ness."

jessy said...

i absolutely love the approach you took, Diann! i hear ya on the food coloring – it kinda weirds me out a bit, too. the texture sounds awesome and i love that you created the most delicious of pb filling. mmmmmmmmm! what a fun challenge and your results rock! such a tasty gluten-free success. yay!

miss v said...

ha! i love that everyone has spooktacular treats on their blogs right now! cute!

Unknown said...

i think yours are way cuter!

Jes said...

Monster macaroons! Too cute!

Anonymous said...

Would you be willing to share your recipe?

Thanks!
Courtney

Hannah said...

Oh I love your macs, they're so much cuter than the standard! ;) And I'm so flattered for the mention, but really, yours are wonderful (and so creative!)

Mihl said...

I love your macaroons and I agree with Hannah. Yours are something very special and they look adorable.

dreaminitvegan said...

These look so light and airy. Great work!