Matcha Macarons (with Video Tutorial)

If you have noticed, macarons are my latest obsession. I'm pretty sure that stemmed from my sweet success about 2 weeks ago. Earlier this week, I tried making some matcha and chocolate macarons but I made a boo boo and the shells weren't as pretty as I wish they would be. 

Since it was a PH yesterday and that I was gonna meet my mum and siblings for dinner, I decided to bake some macarons for them as they've yet to have any of those I've baked. Also, it also helped that my new tripod arrived on Thursday >.< I did try filming a video tutorial prior to this in my -still quite new- kitchen but truth be told, the angles were HORRIBLE. I decided to invest in a tripod and I'm proud to say that I'm back to doing video tutorials! (: 

So back to the macarons.. as you may already know, they're not the easiest of things to bake but they're such gems. The hubby loves them a lot so it's like a legit reason for me to bake more of them though I don't give him a lot of it to eat. He only gets a few from each batch XD

These Matcha Macarons took me about 1.5 hours to bake and I'd rate it a difficulty level 4 out of 5. There are many factors that may lead to its failure so I'll share how each failure maybe avoided based on the experience I've had. 

Matcha Macarons

This recipe yields 13 - 15 small macarons (template in link)

55g fine almond meal

100g icing sugar

50g egg whites, room temperature

18g castor sugar

1-2 tsp matcha powder

wilton gel food colouring in leaf green

57g unsalted butter, room temperature

90g icing sugar

1 tbsp vanilla bean paste

1 tsp matcha powder

Method

Enjoy this video tutorial!

Here are some notes for the making of macarons..

1) Ingredients must be of room temperature

2) Bowl for whisking of egg whites must be clean of dust/yolk etc

3) Only use gel food colouring for the best colours

4) If the dry mixture is too coarse, blitz it. You won't want rough macarons do you?

5) Use silicon paper for lining your baking trays (this has worked the best for me so far)

6) Ensure that macarons are dried before baking. You want pretty feet don't you? Refer to this blog post for drying of shells using the oven. I usually leave mine next to a fan for about 30 minutes or even under the air-conditioner at times. 

7) Make sure your macaronage is in the right stage, one/two whips too few or too many will cause your macarons to be grainy/too smooth (macarons will be flat)

8) If your macarons are cooked, they will be easy to remove. If they are not, pop it back into the oven for a minute or two.

9) Macarons are meant to be sweet and sugar is pretty much essential for the pretty feet/smooth top so NO you may not cut down on the sugar drastically like you would for other bakes. Go find something else to bake if the sugar puts you off. In fact, the sugar allows the macarons to grow taller in a way... go figure. 

Have fun baking them! (: