“This will take us time to finish. Are you sure you wanted to stay?” Lu Xinyi asked Shen Yi who had already anticipated what would happen next.
“I’d rather be here than somewhere else. Do whatever you need to do. I’ll just finish up some work while waiting,” Shen Yi replied, taking his laptop with him before putting his headphones in place and start working inside Lu Xinyi’s room.
Now that was solved, Lu Xinyi tied her hair in a messy bun before taking out the food processor and digital weighing scale from her storage room. Because she was absent-minded earlier and pressured under Shen Yi’s gaze, Lan Xiaoli had forgotten these tools before making her macarons.
“I’ve seen you were using volume measurements earlier. In making macarons, a kitchen scale is necessary as volume measures are far less accurate and may result in a poor outcome.” Lu Xinyi explained. “I’ll not teach you how to make them properly, but I’ll show you how I make mine so you can compare and see where you were making mistakes.”
From her school bag, Lan Xiaoli took a notebook and jot down the tips and steps Lu Xinyi said in preparing her macarons.
“First things first, a macaron should be chewy on the inside and crispy on the outside. They should have these classic feet and smooth top. Typically, you can use ganache or buttercream for fillings.
“The texture and surface of the cookie should be very smooth. Bumps show that the almond wasn’t ground finely enough or wasn’t sifted to take out the chunks. A chunky macaron might taste okay, but a finer one tastes better.”
Lu Xinyi then started making her version of macarons by weighing her almond flour and confectioner’s sugar.
“On making macarons, most recipes call for almost the same ingredients so making the perfect one relies on one’s techniques. You might need to do a lot of practice later,” she started.
Once she was satisfied with the weight of her dry ingredients, Lu Xinyi poured almond flour and sugar in a food processor with a dash of salt and pulsed it a few times to make sure everything was a little finer before sifting it.
“This part is necessary if you want to make sure you’ll get smoother tops on your macarons. The finer the dry ingredients, the smoother your top is gonna be. Now, can you please separate the egg white and yolks for me?”
Lan Xiaoli left her notes aside and started cracking the eggs and separating the egg yolk from egg whites while Lu Xinyi sifted dry ingredients making sure to remove the lumps.
“By the way, make sure you’ll use eggs at room temperature and not the egg you’ve stored in your fridge. Using this trick will help you yield a fluffier meringue later. Again, you’ll need to weigh the egg whites before beating it.”
Lu Xinyi let the young woman beat the egg whites until it was fluffy and not translucent before she gradually added sugar in it.
“You have to be careful adding the sugar. You can do this by gradually adding bit by bit. I would say about half a tablespoon at a time until you’ve added all of it. Don’t add it all at once, or else you’ll risk knocking too much air out of your whites.”
Once the egg whites were beaten to the desired consistency, Lu Xinyi added vanilla extract and mixed the mixture before adding a drop of red gel food color to the mixture.
“Is gel coloring better than usual liquid ones?” Lan Xiaoli asked.
“Of course. Using gel coloring would give you a vibrant color without thinning your batter unlike what the liquid does.”
After that, Lu Xinyi took the bowl of dry ingredients.
“Now, we’re in the most important part of making macarons. This is where you can make them or break them. Most problems occur here so you have to pay attention. Also, you better make sure that the humidity in your kitchen is not so high. Humidity will absolutely affect the quality of your macarons so the more humid it is, the more likely these will not turn out good.
“Anyway, let’s add the sifted flour mixture. You can add one-third of it and mixed it with the meringue. I assume you know by now how to do macaronage1?” Lu Xinyi let Lan Xiaoli mixed the ingredients and watched how she struggled to incorporate it. She really needed more practice on doing macaronage.
Lu Xinyi patiently watched her mix.
“You’re gonna gently fold the two together over and over. Don’t be too violent when you’re doing this, Miss Lan, but also don’t be so gentle that you’re not doing anything at all. The idea here is to push out air and all those big air bubbles for a more uniform.
“The final texture you’re looking for is a smooth glossy texture with no big bubbles, and it should be able to form a full figure-eight shape before breaking. The second you get that figure eight, you’re pretty much good to go so stop there as soon as you see that.”
Lan Xiaoli nodded and did what Lu Xinyi had told her. This was something she missed during their proctor’s lecture, and now, she felt very lucky that Lu Xinyi was giving her a chance to learn it.
Once Lan Xiaoli’s figure eight didn’t break, she transferred the batter to a piping bag with a round tip. Meanwhile, Lu Xinyi sprayed the baking sheet with cooking oil before lining the parchment paper. The oil would help the parchment paper to stick and wouldn’t allow it to move around while piping out the batter.
Taking the piping bag from Lan Xiaoli’s hand, Lu Xinyi started piping out the batter into 1.5 inches round and spaced about an inch from each other.
“Make sure not to pull the tips straight up when you finish these rounds. It’s better to kind of like twist and flick them off as you can see here.” Lu Xinyi said, without breaking her concentration at the task she was doing.
Once she piped it all out, Lu Xinyi tapped the baking sheet against her counter a few times to get any excess bubbles out.
“Now, don’t forget this step, Miss Lan. You have to tap it on your counter before letting it sit there for thirty minutes to an hour, completely exposed to air to develop a totally dry surface. Do not skip that step; it is very important that you let that dry out a little bit. Then bake it at 285 degrees Fahrenheit or 140 degrees Celsius for 17 to 19 minutes.”
She then passed the baking sheet to Lan Xiaoli and let her put it in the oven which she had preheated earlier.
“The oven temperature is important because you don’t want your macarons to develop feet too quickly; otherwise, they’ll deflate. The temp I said earlier should be a good range to be in, depending on how hot or cold your oven may run.”
While waiting for the macarons to bake, the two women cleaned up the kitchen counter, and Lu Xinyi took some ingredients from her pantry for her filling.
After 17 minutes of waiting, Lan Xiaoli took the baking sheet and set it aside. Her eyes lit up when she saw how perfectly shaped the macaron shells were. Why did these look better than the shells that her proctor made before?
“Let those cool on the parchment slightly before attempting to remove them.” Lu Xinyi started while taking softened butter. “You don’t want the bottoms to stick or tear apart. Then, carefully remove them later and cool them down to room temp. While waiting, I’ll show you how I do my rosewater buttercream filling.”
On another clean bowl, Lu Xinyi beat her softened butter until light and creamy, and then she added powdered sugar and salt. Making sure it was incorporated well, she started adding a quarter-teaspoon of her rosewater, half-teaspoon of vanilla extract, and whole milk. She beat it until light and fluffy before transferring into two piping bags with round tips.
Once the macaron shells were completely cool, the two started piping the filling in one cookie and sandwiching it with another cookie. When all the cookies have fillings, Lan Xiaoli couldn’t contain her happiness and excitement towards the macarons she made with Lu Xinyi.
They looked like round mini sandwiches in the sense that there was a filling between two pieces of shells. Of course, the famous ruffled edges of the outer shells were present.
Lan Xiaoli’s stomach growled, and she squirmed in her seat to try to silence the rumbling. She glanced at the clock; it was already dinner time. Lu Xinyi and President Shen must be waiting for her to finish.
Staring at the macarons, she was salivating at the thought of eating it. Lu Xinyi’s macarons might not be as visually impressive as Han Yixin’s, but the perfection of each macaron shell and the slight aroma of the rosewater filling was enough to make Lan Xiaoli fall for it. The process of incorporating the dry ingredients with the egg whites to make macarons.