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