Attempt no. 9 – the chocolate macaron with chocolate ganache and peanut butter, again

So I am back in the states for a funeral, and I had brought the results of attempt no. 8 to share with the family. Can I repeat my relative success (no pun intended) on this side of the Atlantic?

As it happens, no.

Today’s opponent, local kitchen.

I’d brought the SilPats and piping bag, but neither a scale nor almond flour, figuring I could find both here. I was wrong: we didn’t have a food scale, and the almond flour I bought locally was poorly milled – lots of almond “pebbles” that resisted grinding in the food processor. (I’ve been using Wellbee’s almond flour at home, and it’s a much better product than the “leading national brand.”) Without a scale, I couldn’t use a recipe that specifies the weight of the egg whites, so I turned back to this recipe from chow.com, which theoretically should be just as good as any other, but I prefer precise measures and ratios.

On the other hand, I finally had access to one of these:

Things got messy pretty quickly, however. In addition to not having a scale, I also didn’t have a good sifter, so a lot of the dry mixture ended up all over the counter; worse, I didn’t age the egg whites properly, since I was in a rush to make the macarons while everyone was still around, so the batter had too much moisture in it. You can see how shells cracked even though they started to develop feet, which suggests too much moisture trying to get out too quickly.

Scenes from a “macassre.”

Need I even say it? The decision goes to the meringue.