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America's Test Kitchen Season 26 Episode 25
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00:28I'm your host, my host, and I'll see you next time.
00:37Today on America's Test Kitchen, Bridget makes Julia macarons with raspberry buttercream,
00:43and then Julia makes Bridget bougeres. It's all coming up right here on America's Test Kitchen.
00:56French macaron cookies are so popular, they now sell them at these little kiosks in my
01:01local mall. And they're popular for good reason, because they're as pretty as they are delicious.
01:06But the recipe for making them at home is notoriously difficult. In fact, we've spent
01:11decades trying to get a recipe that's foolproof, and we just nailed it. And today, Bridget's
01:15going to show us how it's done. I'm just the representative here. This is really the genius
01:20work of our colleague, Steve Dunn. He worked on this for a very long time, years and years and
01:26years, really trying to perfect macaron. Hopefully, this is a nice tribute to Steve.
01:30I can't wait. So almond flour really is the base of macaron. And this is 150 grams. Not ounces,
01:38not cups. We really want you weighing out the dry ingredients here and also some of the liquid
01:43ingredients. So accuracy is important. Very, very important. This is blanched almond flour. It's
01:48fine ground. We have some recommendations on our website for a couple of really great brands
01:52and an equal amount of confectioner's sugar, 150 grams. We do need to sift these two together.
01:58If you have a fine mesh strainer that's not too fine, it actually makes quick work of this.
02:05Sometimes a lot of people have very fine mesh strainers, so why not get out the old granny
02:09tag? Oh, I love that. You know, I still have my omas. It's just got a little bit of a
02:14coarser
02:15mesh in there. And it's really important to sift this because if you don't, some of the larger
02:21pieces of almond might still be in there and you'll get kind of pocked look tops on your macarons.
02:28Oh, interesting. Yeah, nobody wants pocked macaron. All right, same amount, 150 grams of confectioner's
02:34sugar and just an eighth of a teaspoon of table salt. We're going to start it slow so we don't
02:42get the mushroom cloud. All right. And then I'm going to give this to you. It's like giving me a
02:49new toy. I know. Thank you. I know. I know you can handle it. Definitely. All right. So I'm going
02:55to
02:55work on the egg whites. Now in total, we're using four large egg whites, but we're starting off here
03:01with just 75 grams of the egg whites. And I'm going to add a little bit of cream of tartar.
03:06It's an acid that denatures the protein strands. It's like stretching a balloon before you blow it.
03:11It allows it to get bigger before it pops. We don't want a meringue that gets weepy. So I'm going
03:16to start
03:16this on medium high. And I'm looking for this to just get to the soft peak stage, maybe a little
03:24under,
03:24but definitely not beyond soft peak. Should take two to three minutes.
03:29There we go. You can see it's just under. All right. So now I'm going to turn it to the
03:34lowest
03:34speed. We're just going to leave this alone while we work on our next component. It's not going to
03:39overinflate because it's nice and low. Okay. So we're going to make an Italian meringue. Gotcha.
03:44Got 150 grams of granulated sugar and then 60 grams of water. So I love Italian meringue.
03:52The structure is set because we're essentially cooking the egg whites. So it's more foolproof.
03:56That's exactly right. So I just want to stir this just to moisten the sugar. You don't want to
04:01get too much on the sides of the pan. And now I'm going to turn it to medium high. We're
04:06going to
04:06leave it alone. Don't want to stir it. The sugar will dissolve. And then after that, we want to cook
04:11this until it reaches 245 degrees. That's going to take about four minutes. All right. So I've just
04:17been testing this here. It should be about 245. And you want to be precise with this. So I'm going
04:23to take
04:23this off the heat. Let's head over to our mixer. So I'm going to turn this to medium and I'm
04:30going to
04:30pour this in a nice steady stream. I don't want to hit the beater. You don't want hot sugar flying
04:36everywhere. Slow, steady stream here. So this is really cooking the egg, setting the matrix. So it's
04:43going to be a much more stable foam. It's going to be a lot easier to work with. I'm going
04:47to add a little
04:48food coloring here because they're macaron. And we're making raspberry macaron today. So a little pink
04:54goes in, a little red food coloring. About three drops should do. Now this is a gel color. Instead of
05:01water, it uses glycerin or it uses corn syrup as its base. We don't want to add any water in
05:06there. So avoid
05:07the liquid food coloring, but the gels are great. So I just did three. All right. So at this point,
05:12goes up to
05:13medium high. So we're going to leave this in here for about three to five minutes. But what I'm looking
05:18for is the mixture to get nice, thick, voluminous, and just shy of stiff peaks. Okay. All right. Let's
05:25check this out here. That is so pretty. Isn't it gorgeous? Yes. So I'm looking for just under stiff
05:34peaks. This is called Bec Doisso. It's bird's beak. It's beautiful, isn't it? It is beautiful. But this is
05:40how we know that we're ready. If it was standing straight up, it would have been too far gone. You
05:43really need to start over. All right. So all of this gets plopped into our mixture here that you
05:49expertly sifted of our almond flour and our confectioner's sugar, that little bit of salt
05:54in there. All right. One last thing, a little bit more egg white. This is 38 grams of just the
05:59regular egg white. You know how macaron have that really nice moist center? This is going to help us
06:05get that. It's also going to give us the right texture. I'm really going in there and kind of just
06:09mixing this together. So deflation at this point is not only okay, it's desired. It's
06:17just the opposite of what you think when you work with a meringue. Well, think about if the
06:21meringue is too inflated before we bake it, you're going to end up with really tall macarons,
06:27which don't look right. And they might be askew. They might be a little bit wobbly. You don't
06:30want that. So once all this almond flour mixture is incorporated in, I'm going to do something
06:35called macronage. Sounds like it was developed for macarons. The French have a word for everything
06:41when it comes to pastries. All right. I'm going to stir, scrape the bottom, but I'm also going
06:46to smear the mixture along the side of the bowl. And you can see if I take this and I
06:54plop it right
06:54back in the bowl right now, nothing really happens. It's not very fluid. It doesn't work its way back
07:00into the batter, but I want it to be able to self-level itself. Gotcha. That's what we're
07:05looking for. And that's how you get that beautiful flat top. I'm looking for the mixture to go back
07:10into a nice, light, steady stream. It takes about eight to 10 seconds to get it off of the spatula
07:17here. And this is not it. No, that looks like cake batter. Yeah, it does. So we need to let
07:21this go
07:21a little bit more. I want to make sure that I'm deflating just enough. You don't want to overdo it
07:27because you have to start over again. You're going to get super flat macaron. I think this
07:32is pretty close. So let's see here. If I go back and forth, this little ribbon, you can see it.
07:38And if you let it sit for 30 seconds, it just dissipates right back into the rest of the batter.
07:42Yes. So I'm going to leave this here for a second while I talk about our pan setups.
07:47Now you can, and this is what I used to use when I would make macaron a thousand years ago.
07:52It's an art project. Parchment paper. You take a one and a half inch circle. We're making one
07:58and a half inch macaron. Trace it with a pencil. But, you know, technology keeps marching along.
08:06So we have these beautiful silicone mats here that have these templates on them. You want to make
08:11sure that you get one for this recipe that has one and a half inch circle. And that's this middle
08:15one here with the larger dotted line. Oh, cool. Yeah. So that's where I'm going to be aiming for.
08:19So we're using these flat pans without rims on two sides. It's going to make it a lot easier
08:24to load this on and off of the sheet pan. I just want to test this. I'm going to take
08:28about a
08:29teaspoon of the mixture. Try to get in a lovely little circle. So we just need to let this sit
08:34for about a minute. Okay. If it flattens, we're good. If not, it's more macronage. Okay.
08:40It's flat. Perfectly round. It's gorgeous. All right. So I'm going to use a pastry bag. And this pastry bag
08:47has been fitted with a half inch tip. And I've twisted the bottom. Just a little trick to do
08:53so it doesn't get too messy. All right. So I'm going to scrape this in there.
08:59So now I just want to gather up this top here. We're going to let this fall down into the
09:06bottom.
09:07So I'm going to hold this about a half inch above the silicone mat. Right in the middle,
09:12holding the bag vertically. Pipe a little bit and then do a quick flick to stop the flow of the
09:19batter. Oh. So you can see it's coming out of the bag without even me pressing. Look at those
09:26perfect circles. Not too bad. I do want to give this a few wraps just to break out any large
09:32bubbles that
09:33might be in there. Okay. So six taps. All right. I'm going to pipe the rest. Let them all sit
09:41for 20
09:42minutes. Okay. So usually when we make a meringue, we are careful to preserve every last air bubble.
09:49But when making macarons, we use a process called macaronage so that we strategically deflate some of
09:56the air bubbles. Meringue naturally contains both large and small bubbles. For macarons,
10:01we combine the meringue with an almond flour mixture and stir it thoroughly. Over the course of stirring,
10:07the bubbles get swept around. Some of them are pushed to the surface of the batter where they
10:12deflate. Others collide with particles of almond flour and break up into smaller bubbles. Big bubbles,
10:18being bigger, are much more likely to run into obstacles than small bubbles are. So the overall
10:24effect of stirring is to get rid of big bubbles while leaving plenty of small bubbles. That's why when
10:29making macaron, we stir the meringue with the flour to get rid of the large bubbles that would otherwise
10:35destabilize the structure and more of the surface. All right. 20 minutes has passed. Now these have
10:41formed a little bit of a skin here. I just want to show you. If I take my finger, just
10:45tap it on there.
10:46It doesn't really leave a mark. This is very strategic for macarons because you want that steam to be
10:51trapped. It won't be able to escape through the top very much. It's going to go through the bottom and
10:55you get
10:55that little frilly foot. Yeah. Yeah. That's really a hallmark of great macaron. These are going to bake
11:01for 13 minutes at 325 degrees. But we found that the bottoms were still a little bit sticky at this
11:07325
11:07degrees. So we lowered the rack to the lower middle position. Give a little bit more blast on the bottom.
11:13If you only had one oven, you just bake them one sheet at a time. But we have a thousand
11:17ovens here,
11:18so we can use at least two for this. One sheet per oven. That gives us some time to make
11:23our raspberry
11:24buttercream. I've got 10 tablespoons of unsalted butter. Soften just a bit here. You want to get
11:30rid of the whisk attachment for this and go back to the paddle attachment. This is a mistake that I've
11:35made in the past. And sometimes the buttercream is just a little too fluffy, a little too airy.
11:40This is going to do the job perfectly. So we're going to mix this on medium and high speed,
11:45just to break up the butter a little bit, about 20 seconds.
11:50All right, this is one and a quarter cups of confectioner's sugar. Just a little bit of salt,
11:56a pinch. So now I'm going to mix this on medium low, just until this mixture comes together,
12:02about 45 seconds. All right, now we're going to increase the speed to medium. Let it go for about
12:0815 more seconds until it's fully moistened and comes together.
12:14It's nothing better than butter and sugar. Getting better every second. Exactly. All right,
12:18scrapey, scrapey. We're going to add a tablespoon of heavy cream. I want it to have a little bit more
12:23of a soft texture. And a half a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Use the good stuff here. All right,
12:30so I just want to mix it first to medium speed until the heavy cream is incorporated. About 10 seconds
12:35should do it. I'm going to increase the speed to medium high. We're going to let this go until it's
12:41nice and fluffy and thick. That's going to take about four minutes. I've got something for us
12:45to do in the meantime. These are freeze dried raspberries. So this is a third cup. I'm just
12:51going to pulverize this in my very cleaned out spice grinder. We don't want any cumin scented raspberry
12:57macaron. All right, let's get this out of here. There we go. Raspberry powder. That is very cool.
13:07Mm, smell that. Ah, it's an incredible ingredient. So I just want to sieve this through a fine mesh
13:15strainer. And especially with raspberries, sometimes there's those little cores. They don't want to
13:20fully grind down. Oh yeah, it's mostly the seeds and the cores left in there. There you go. There's a
13:25snack for you. All right. Let's see if we have the correct fluffy texture. Looks nice and creamy. Isn't that
13:35gorgeous? All right. Now we're going to incorporate just about a tablespoon of our raspberry mixture to
13:42start. You can always add more. You can taste it after it's blended in there. Medium speed just until
13:47this is incorporated. It's only about 30 seconds. All right, let's take a look here. Scrape the bottom,
13:58make sure there aren't any pockets. But look at this consistency. Oh, and that color. It's fluffy.
14:04It's pink. Buttercream's all set. Let's go check on the macaron. All right. Those are gorgeous.
14:11Aren't they lovely? All right. So I do want to jiggle them just a little bit to see if they
14:15need a couple
14:15more minutes in the oven. But these are looking great. Oh yeah. So we're going to let these cool down
14:21completely before we fill them. Okay. It's filling time. You're at the filling station. Oh, I like it.
14:27These have cooled completely. We're just about ready to fill them. So I'm going to take a row here. Just
14:31flip them upside down. The little feet around the bottom are perfection. Thank you. So I went ahead
14:38and filled this pastry bag with the raspberry buttercream. There's a half inch tip here at the bottom.
14:44Now I'm going to add about two teaspoons of filling to the top of these overturned cookies.
14:49And I will leave about an eighth inch border like that. And then I'm going to take another cookie
14:57and press it down gently just so the filling reaches the edge. All right. So I'm going to go
15:03down the line here. Well, you're going to be the topper and presser. I can do that. Once you've filled
15:07the macarons, they actually have to go into the fridge for 24 hours. It's called maturing the macaron. And
15:13it allows that buttercream, some of the moisture to start to go into the meringue shell itself and get a
15:18little bit chewier. It's beautiful. So a minimum of 24 hours, but you can leave them up to a week
15:23or you can put them in the freezer for up to two months. Wow. Good luck with that. Yeah.
15:28And we've got that other batch to do. And then we're going to eat. And I might
15:32have a little surprise for you.
15:36Payoff time. Bridgette, that is just a stunning platter. It is just perfection. Aren't they lovely? Yes. All right.
15:44So go ahead and help yourself. You get the crunch and then you get the chew. And then you get
15:52the
15:52flavor of the raspberry. It's not overpowering, just enough to know that that's what the pink is
15:58signifying. Like beautifully rasperied, if I may use that as a verb. I don't think I've ever had a
16:04macaron that's this perfect. Don't fill up on the raspberry because... Oh, you didn't. Well, these are
16:12just some of our variations. Coffee, which has a beautiful coffee, buttercream, pistachio. It's got
16:18to be my favorite. And then passion fruit. It's got a passion fruit curd, but all of these variations
16:23are available on our website. Bridgette, thank you for breaking down this recipe and explaining it step
16:28by step so that it really will be foolproof. Absolutely. My pleasure. If you want to make the
16:34perfect French macaron, make an Italian meringue by pouring a sugar syrup into whipping egg whites.
16:40Smear the batter against the sides of the bowl to eliminate any large air bubbles. Let the piped
16:45meringue cookies rest for 20 minutes before baking. And sandwich a flavorful buttercream between the
16:51meringues. From America's Test Kitchen, the last word on macaron. Yeah, bring that platter back over here.
16:57Say the last word is over here. Passion fruit. Passion fruit.
17:07It's always a good idea to have a few recipes for party foods on hand. And one of my favorites
17:12is gougere. Now these lighter than air cheese puffs are actually quite easy to make, but the process can
17:20be a little intimidating. But we've got the world's best teacher here with us, Julia, and she's going to
17:25show us how to make gougere. Yeah, they're delicious, but also a really easy way to learn how to make
17:30patecheu,
17:31which is the base for a lot of really cool baked goods like profiteroles, or eclairs,
17:35or even a croquenbush. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. Now, patecheu is a cooked dough. You make it in a saucepan.
17:41But before we get cooking, you want to make sure you have everything prepped because this dough comes
17:45together in a snap. Right. And we're going to start with the eggs. Now, we're going to add two eggs,
17:50which is pretty classic. But the one thing we found is that we're going to add an extra white.
17:56And the white gives the dough a bit more structure so it can support all the cheese. Right. Also adds
18:01a
18:02little more liquid, which is great for steam, so you get that nice puff. Okay. I'm going to set that
18:06yolk aside. So to the eggs, we're going to add a little bit of salt. This is a quarter teaspoon
18:11of
18:11table salt. When you add the salt to the eggs, it changes the protein structure of the eggs, makes them
18:17a
18:17little stronger. So you get a better loft in the finished gougere and it doesn't take much time.
18:23So we're going to whisk this together. Now, the other thing is we want to measure the amount here.
18:27We're looking for half a cup of the egg mixture right on. So now it's time to start cooking.
18:33So in the saucepan, I have half a cup of water and over medium heat, we're going to add two
18:38tablespoons
18:38of unsalted butter, just a little bit of cayenne, just a little bit of kick to help that cheese flavor
18:44come alive. And we're just going to bring this to a simmer before we add the flour. All right,
18:49this is just starting to come to a simmer, which is great. I'm going to turn the heat to low
18:53and
18:53I'm going to add the flour. This is just all-purpose flour, half a cup or two and a half
18:58ounces.
18:59We're going to cook this until it forms a dough, takes only about 30 seconds. You'll see the dough will
19:04start to form a ball and it will no longer stick to the sides of the pan. I do love
19:10that you're using
19:11estencier with the rounded bottom. Yes, it makes it so easy to not have to clean the corners. You can
19:17see it's starting to form a ball. That's pretty much it. I'm going to turn the heat off. I'm going
19:22to take this dough and put it right into the food processor. I'm going to let it rip for five
19:28seconds
19:28to let it cool off and then I'm going to start to add the eggs. Okay. I'm going to start
19:32to add the eggs
19:32in a slow, steady stream. And now it's time to add the cheese. We're going to use a whopping four
19:46ounces of cheese to this dough, but that's because we only use two tablespoons of butter. Down on butter,
19:51up on cheese, more flavor. So this is an aged Gruyere that we shredded. If you have a moist cheese,
19:56again, too much moisture really weighs down the beautiful little puffs. You want a Gruyere that's
20:02at least a year old. Let it go for about 30 to 40 seconds until the cheese is nice and
20:07combined and
20:08it's glossy. All right. Oh, there you go. You can see the cheese looks like little pieces of cornmeal
20:17that's taken on that sheen. All right. So each Gruyere is a tablespoon. Then you take a little spoon
20:24and you just kind of drop it right onto the parchment lined baking sheet. You get about 24 of
20:32these and you want a space of an inch apart. There we go. You could refrigerate this dough before shaping
20:41it for 24 hours. Put a greased piece of parchment flush to the surface of the dough. Then you can
20:47let
20:47it come to room temperature and you can go. Now that they're all divided up, you do want to smooth
20:51the top.
20:52So take a spoon and some vegetable oil spray. This will just prevent the spoon from sticking. And
20:58you can just smooth the tops and you can push them into a nice round. Lovely. Yeah. Again, because the
21:05dough's
21:05cooked, you really have a lot of control. So these are ready for the oven. Two things. One, you'll notice
21:12I have two sheet pans here. This is an extra layer of insulation that will prevent the bottoms from burning.
21:17Mm-hmm. The other thing is we're going to bake them in the upper part of the oven. Again, just
21:21protect
21:21that bottom from burning. Okay. 425 degrees, nice and hot. So you get a good puff. They're going to take
21:2714 to 20 minutes. Sounds good. Smell that? I sure do. Smells like cheese puffs. It does. Oh, these are
21:35perfect. You can see they're browned on the top, but not on the bottoms. You see how it's a little
21:40pale
21:41right on the bottom third. That's perfect. Okay. Because we're going to let them finish in an off
21:46oven for 10 to 15 minutes. And that finished baking time will help them brown completely, but also keep
21:52the exterior nice and crisp. Got it. All right. Oven off. Closed. Oven off. 10 to 15 minutes. Sounds good.
22:00Oh. Oh. Lovely. Such a good smell. Aren't those great? Oh. Makes the whole house smell lovely.
22:11All right. So you can see these are nicely browned all the way through to the bottom,
22:16but the bottoms aren't burned. Now we're going to get them right off this hot sheet pan,
22:21and we're going to put them on a wire rack. They'll hold for about a day in an airtight container,
22:27but they freeze like a dream up to a month. And you would just want to re-crisp them for
22:31a few
22:32minutes in a hot oven. All right. So 15 minutes, then we can taste them. That's great. It's eating time.
22:37They're adorable. Aren't they? I kind of love them all piled up. Well,
22:41I'm going to destroy that. Go ahead. I'm going to go in. I'm going to go for the top.
22:45And they're 90% air. It's true. All right. I'm going to crack into that. Look at that.
22:52And that air pocket. That air pocket is everything. It's the sign of a great Gougere's steam to really
22:59get that puff, but the dough has enough structure to support that. If the dough's too weak,
23:04it really kind of collapses and it's breadier. Crisp on the outside. And the flavor of the
23:09cheese just really comes through. But think about all the different things you could do with them.
23:13Maybe a little nutmeg or a little bit of thyme in there. Black pepper, make them just a little
23:17spicy side. And the recipe's so easy. Yeah, definitely. But you're always a great teacher.
23:21Thanks. Love hanging with you. Well, if you would like to make these beautiful Gougere,
23:26start with an egg mixture featuring an extra egg white. Process in four ounces of Gruyere for bold
23:32cheese flavor and leave the baked puffs in a turned off oven for a super crisp exterior.
23:37So from America's Test Kitchen, the perfect and petite party food Gougere. You can get this recipe
23:43and all the recipes from this season, along with product reviews and select episodes. And those are
23:49all on our website, America's Test Kitchen dot com slash TV.
23:56They go down easy, don't they?
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