After my dismal/embarrassing first try at macarons earlier this month, I picked up my spatula and gave it another go.  I will not be defeated by a cookie.

I wasn’t sure where to go from the first recipe, but I wanted to make something green for St. Pat’s.  Since I already hit you with my Shamrock Shake obsession last week, I held back on the ShamShake macs (in my mental filing cabinet for next year) and decided on mint chocolate.  Would you believe a recipe already existed?  I love when that happens.

I used Not So Humble Pie‘s recipe again, but this time I used the French method, which I think was easier- no cooking sugar/egg on the stove this time.  I am much happier with the results visually this time!  They actually look like macarons.  They’re more uniform and they rose up nicely with nice feet.  Don’t go thinking I perfected it, though.  Take a look inside:

 See the big air pocket and thin outer crust?  I think I over-mixed or under-baked.  Still not completely sure.  Another shot of the easily broken shells:

Though I still don’t feel entirely confident with macarons, I think I’ll be retiring from them for a little while.  It was more of a challenge than anything to me.  They are too sweet and too tempting to have around all the time while experimenting.  If someone requests them of me in the future, I’ll gladly give them another try, but for now, I’m satisfied with how this batch came out (visually, at least) and I can move on to other (healthier!) things.

The recipes have a lot of detail, and Ms. Humble deserves ALL the credit for them, so if you’d like the recipes, please visit her posts about French Macarons, Macaron Troubleshooting and the Mint Chocolate Ganache.

Did any of you try making macs this month?  How did it go for you?

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