How to make perfect Almond Macaroons

I love ALmond macaroons, which are actually chewy flat cookies that does not use any butter nor flour.

I am sure that you will enjoy these macaroons as much as I did, when you bite into those crispy and chewy texture, different from the regular macaroons which are spongy and thick.

There are tons of macaroon recipes online and you can see the different images from each recipe.

However, this is the only Almond Macaroon recipe that I am satisfied with because it uses less ingredients compare to others and easily to prepare too.

Firstly, you need to separate the egg whites from the yolks as you only needed the whites to form soft peaks. Hence, you could reserve the egg yolks for another batch of butter cookies or simply add those yolks into fritter batter for deep frying.

Whipping the egg whites into soft peaks can be easily done with a cake mixer as you control the speed.

If you are using a handheld whisk, I am sure you have experience aching wrist because it will take you a longer time to form the peaks.

Notice that you don’t need any self raising flour for this macaroons?

Yes, all you need is cornflour or rice flour to combine with the ground almond powder.

Hence, it will produce a fragrant almond flavor in addition to the almond essence.

Sugar wise, you could choose icing sugar or simply ground white coarse sugar into powdery form.

The reason why I don’t use white castor or coarse sugar is, it will take a longer time to dissolve the sugar with the egg whites. Therefore, icing sugar is more suitable to form the peaks faster.

Buy raw almonds instead of ready to eat almonds. You could save money on the almonds.

Simply cut the almonds into halves, toast in the oven for 10min until brownish and they are even suitable to consume as snack if you glaze the raw almonds with honey.

If the almond macaroons sticked to the baking sheet, that indicates you need to brush more butter on the sheets so that you could remove the macaroons easily with a butter knife.

ALmond Macaroons

Ingredients

2 egg whites
85g ground almonds
115g white sugar
2 tsp corn flour
A couple drops of almond essence
12 almond flakes

Method to prepare

Preheat oven at 180C
Line baking sheet on baking tray, lightly grease with butter.
Scoop out 2 tsp of egg whites.
Pour in the remainder of the egg whites into a mixing bowl.
Whisk the whites until soft peaks. You can use a cake mixer or use a whisk.
Fold in ground almonds, sugar, corn flour and almond essence into the mixture. Beat well until smooth batter is formed.
Scoop up 1 tbsp spoonful of soft batter onto the baking tray, use the back of the spoon to flatten it. Make at least 6-8 macaroons in each batch.
Place a piece of toasted almond flake on each macaroon.
Brush lightly with egg whites.
Bake in oven for 20min until golden browned. Allow to cool off.
Remove the macaroons from the baking sheets.
Makes around 20 macaroons