Oh macaroons...

Macaroons come with a pretty negative baking rep. many bloggers that I have found have had nothing but failures when it comes to making these airy delights, but I stumbled upon this blog that did a great job of putting my fears at ease. Please take a mental image of the above picture. Now continue on to see what mine looked like.

What a picture, right? I will admit, I felt pretty good when I went into making these. Actually, cocky is a better way to put it. I had no fear before making these, I just had to follow the steps and I would get fluffy little meringue pillows, right? Ugh. Alright, let the macaroon debacle begin.

First off, has anyone ever bought almond flour before? This is like a staple in baking macaroons and a small bag of it would have cost me $13! So I just made my own, which is what you are supposed to do if you do not own almond flour. I put some in a food processor and bam, there you have it, almond flour. I put it through the sifter about 3 times, just to make sure I got it nice and smooth.

Almond flour and powdered sugar combined

Egg whites

Egg whites, sugar and salt (ended up being whipped together for about 10 minutes)

Coloring and flavor are added a minute before mixing is complete

Of course I used pink

in go the dry ingredients to be folded 45 times

The egg white deflated enough and it looked perfect

piping them went fairly smooth, obviously there was some variations in the size

and out of the oven they came. No "feet" and pretty cracked

Maybe the 3rd batch would turn out better?

Nope. More like pink cookies than macaroons.

Boo. They tasted great, but obviously something went a little wrong. Maybe I folded the dry ingredients too many times with the egg whites? Maybe, maybe, maybe. All I can really do is keep trying these little suckers. They sure put me back in my place! I am not even going to fill these, they are just too sad. But they will be good to snack on over the next few days. Hopefully the next macaroon trial will be a success!

The macaroons didn't turn out so adorable, but here's a dose of cuteness for your trouble:

Our Kitty. And yes, that IS a pink cupcake collar!!

I am one of those people =] We love her.