MACAROONS: LEMON LIQUEUR

My second attempt at making the french dessert, Macaroons. I first tried about a month ago but unfortunatley they didn't work out too well and were too thin. However, this time i bought the Woman's Weekly: Macaroons and Biscuits book which i think greatly contributed to the success of my endeavor this time. The recipe worked beautifully and the pictures featured are gorgeous, i can see myself making many more macaroons in the near future. The main thing i will try and improve next time i make macaroons is their height because if you can tell from the pictures, they are a little bit flat and would look much nicer if raised a bit more.

Ingredients
3 eggwhites
1/4 c (55g) caster sugar
yellow food colouring
1 1/4 c (200g) icing sugar
1c (120g) ground almonds
2 tsp finely grated lemon ring
1 tbsp icing sugar, extra
1/4 c pouring cream
150g white chocolate, chopped coarsely
4 tsp limoncello liqueur

Method
1. Grease oven trays and line with baking paper.
2. Combine the ground almonds and icing sugar and sieve twice. Set aside.
3. Beat eggwhites slowly and then gradually increase speed until soft peaks form. Add caster sugar a spoonful at a time and a few drops of the food colouring, beat until the sugar dissolves. Fold in sifted icing sugar, ground almonds and rind in two batches.
4. Spoon mixture into piping bag fitted with 2cm plain tube. Pipe 4 cm rounds about 2 cm apart onto trays. Tap trays on bench so macarons spread slightly. Dust macaroons with extra sifted icing sugar. Stand 30 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius.
6. Bake macarons about 20 minutes until crisp, but not coloured. Cool on trays.
Ganache
1. Bring cream to the boil in a small saucepan, remove from heat, add chocolate, stir until smooth. Stir in liqueur, stand at room temperature until spreadable.
2. Sandwich macarons with filing.

Tips

- Unfilled macaroons will keep in an airtight container for about a week.

- Fill macaroons just before serving

- Use the leftover lemon in water (personally, that's just what i do)

- Make the macaroons extremley dark with the yellow colouring because i find that it fades during baking

Happy baking

~Jordy xx