Thing Number Ten - Bread-and-butter Macaroons

And just like that, we're into double figures. 

Those egg whites leftover from the bread-and-butter pudding?  They're back.

After the breadcrumb mince pie topping turned out so macaroon-y, I couldn't help but wonder whether it would, in fact, be possible to make actual macaroons from breadcrumbs.  Time to give it a go...

I used 100g of wholemeal breadcrumbs (these need to be ground up very fine, practically to dust), sifted in 175g icing sugar, and mixed the two together.

In another bowl, whisk two egg whites until they form soft peaks.  (When you're whisking egg whites, everything wants to be as clean and dry as possible.  Delia reckons you should wipe the cut side of half a lemon round the bowl, just to be sure there's no lingering grease, but I've always thought this was rather a waste of half a lemon.)

Then whisk in 1tbsp caster sugar, and a splosh of whatever flavour of extract you like.  (It should be 'extract', though, not 'flavouring'.)  I was digging around in my baking cupboard looking for vanilla when I came across a bottle of ginger essence, and I thought it would be able to stand up to brown bread quite nicely, so I went with that.

Fold in the dry ingredients.

Dollop the whole lot into a piping bag with a biggish plain nozzle, and pipe small rounded discs onto a baking tray lined with baking parchment.  (You can get special silicone trays with circular indentations to guide you, but I sort of mentally file them in the 'magic stone' category.  I do basically already know what circles look like).  Flatten down any points with a damp fingertip, and then leave the macaroons alone for 15 minutes or so before you bake them.

They'll basically start to dry out - you should be able to give them a gentle prod without getting covered in gloop.

Put them in a fairly cool oven (130C or so) for about 20 minutes.

They should end up fairly smooth on top with a little frill around the bottom.  (A few of mine did sort of explode, though).

Make buttercream by smooshing together a 1:2 ratio of butter to sifted icing sugar, along with a teaspoon or so of boiling water and a driblet of whatever flavouring you used for the macaroons.  (Don't skip the sifting.  I wouldn't normally care, but you'll regret it here.)  I did 100g:200g but it was loads; half that amount would be plenty.

Make sandwiches of pairs of macaroons, sticking them together with buttercream and, if you feel like it, a bit of jam.  (I felt like it, partly because I thought the jam-sandwich effect was quite fun, and partly because I actually left my macaroons in the oven for too long; more like half an hour than 20 minutes, and so they're much drier and brittler than they should be, and I was trying to counter that a bit).

The verdict

It's kind of hard for me to tell how well these work, because of overcooking them.  This batch are much too dry, but that's entirely my fault (I was worried they weren't going to come off the tray in one piece, and I wimped out, basically, and left them in there waaaay too long).  I was pleased by how macaroon-like they turned out, appearance wise.  In term of flavour, you can really taste the brown bread - I suspect white would be more anonymous - and the ginger works well with that.  Now I've done a batch as proof of concept, I'll definitely try them again, just to refine them and see how they work...