America's Test Kitchen

-Today on "America's Test Kitchen," Bridget makes Julia macarons with raspberry buttercream, and then Julia makes Bridget gougres.

It's all coming up right here on "America's Test Kitchen."

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Use it well.

-French macaron cookies are so popular, they now sell them at these little kiosks in my local mall.

And they're popular for good reason, 'cause they're as pretty as they are delicious.

But the recipe for making them at home is notoriously difficult.

In fact, we've spent decades trying to get a recipe that's foolproof, and we just nailed it.

And today, Bridget's going to show us how it's done.

-I'm just the representative here.

This is really the genius work of our colleague Steve Dunn.

He worked on this for a very long time, years and years and years, really trying to perfect macarons.

Hopefully this is a nice tribute to Steve.

-I can't wait.

-So, almond flour really is the base of macarons.

And this is 150 grams.

-[ Chuckles ] -Not ounces, not cups.

We really want you weighing out the dry ingredients here, and also some of the liquid ingredients.

-So, accuracy is important.

-Very, very important.

This is blanched almond flour.

It's fine-ground.

We have some recommendations on our website for a couple of really great brands.

And an equal amount of confectioners' sugar -- 150 grams.

We do need to sift these two together.

If you have a fine mesh strainer that's not too fine, it actually makes quick work of this.

Sometimes a lot of people have very fine mesh strainers, so why not get out the old granny tech?

-Oh, I love that.

-You know?

-I still have my oma's.

-It's just got a little bit of a coarser mesh in there.

And it's really important to sift this, because if you don't, some of the larger pieces of almond might still be in there and you'll get kind of pocked-look tops on your macarons.

-Oh, interesting.

-Yeah.

Nobody wants pocked macarons.

Alright, same amount -- 150 grams of confectioners' sugar.

And just 1/8 of a teaspoon of table salt.

We're going to start it slow so we don't get the mushroom cloud.

[ Both chuckle ] Alright.

And then I'm going to give this to you.

-[ Gasps ] It's like giving me a new toy.

-I know.

-Oh, thank you.

-I know.

I know you can handle it, definitely.

Alright, so I'm going to work on the egg whites.

Now, in total, we're using four large egg whites.

But we're starting off here with just 75 grams of the egg whites.

And I'm going to add a little bit of cream of tartar.

It's an acid that denatures the protein strands.

It's like stretching a balloon before you blow it.

It allows it to get bigger before it pops.

We don't want a meringue that gets weepy.

So, I'm going to start this on medium-high.

And I'm looking for this to just get to the soft peak stage.

Maybe a little under, but definitely not beyond soft peak.

Should take two to three minutes.

There we go.

You can see it's just under.

Alright, so now I'm going to turn it to the lowest speed.

We're just going to leave this alone while we work on our next component.

It's not going to overinflate because it's nice and low.

-Okay.

-So, we're going to make an Italian meringue.

-Gotcha.

-We've got 150 grams of granulated sugar, and then 60 grams of water.

So, I love Italian meringue.

The structure is set because we're essentially cooking the egg whites.

-So it's more foolproof.

-That's exactly right.

So, I just want to stir this just to moisten the sugar.

You don't want to get too much on the sides of the pan.

And now I'm going to turn it to medium-high.

We're going to leave it alone.

Don't want to stir it.

The sugar will dissolve, and then after that, we want to cook this until it reaches 245 degrees.

That's going to take about four minutes.

Alright, so I've just been testing this here.

It should be about 245.

And you want to be precise with this.

So I'm going to take this off the heat, and let's head over to our mixer.

So, I'm going to turn this to medium.

And now I'm going to pour this in a nice steady stream.

I don't want to hit the beater.

You don't want hot sugar flying everywhere.

Slow, steady stream here.

So, this is really cooking the eggs, setting the matrix, so it's going to be a much more stable foam.

This will be a lot easier to work with.

I'm going to add a little food coloring here because they're macarons.

And we're making raspberry macarons today, so a little pink goes in, a little red food coloring.

About three drops should do.

Now, this is a gel color.

Instead of water, it uses glycerin or it uses corn syrup as its base.

We don't want to add any water in there, so avoid the liquid food coloring.

But the gels are great.

So, I just did three.

-Mm-hmm.

-Alright, so at this point, it goes up to medium-high.

So, we're going to leave this in here for about three to five minutes.

But what I'm looking for is the mixture to get nice, thick, voluminous, and just shy of stiff peaks.

-Okay.

-Alright.

Let's check this out here.

-That is so pretty.

-Isn't it gorgeous?

-Yes.

-So, I'm looking for just under stiff peaks.

This is called bec d'oiseau.

It's "bird's beak."

-Ah!

-It's beautiful, isn't it?

-It is beautiful.

-But this is how we know that we're ready.

If it was standing straight up, it would've been too far gone.

You'd really need to start over.

Alright, so all of this gets plopped into our mixture here that you expertly sifted, of our almond flour and our confectioners' sugar, that little bit of salt in there.

Alright, one last thing -- a little bit more egg white.

This is 38 grams of just the regular egg white.

You know how macarons have that really nice moist center?

-Mm-hmm.

-This is going to help us get that.

It's also going to give us the right texture.

I'm really going in there and kind of just mixing this together.

So, deflation at this point is not only okay -- it's desired.

-It's just the opposite of what you'd think when you work with a meringue.

-Well, think about if the meringue is too inflated before we bake it, you're going to end up with really tall macarons, which don't look right, and they might be askew.

They might be a little bit wobbly.

You don't want that.

So, once all this almond flour mixture is incorporated in, I'm going to do something called macaronage.

-Sounds like it was developed for macarons.

-[ Laughs ] The French have a word for everything when it comes to pastries.

Alright, I'm going to stir, scrape the bottom, but I'm also going to smear the mixture along the side of the bowl.

And you can see, if I take this and I plop it right back in the bowl right now, nothing really happens.

It's not very fluid.

It doesn't work its way back into the batter.

But I want it to be able to self-level itself.

-Gotcha.

-That's what we're looking for.

And that's how you get that beautiful flat top.

I'm looking for the mixture to go back into a nice, light, steady stream.

Takes about 8 to 10 seconds to get it off of the spatula here.

-Mm-hmm.

-And this is not it.

-No, that looks like cake batter.

-Yeah, it does.

So we need to let this go a little bit more.

I want to make sure that I'm deflating just enough.

You don't want to overdo it, 'cause you have to start over again -- you're going to get super flat macaron.

I think this is pretty close.

So, let's see here.

If I go back and forth, this little ribbon... -Uh-huh.

-You can see it.

And if you let it sit for 30 seconds, it just dissipates right back into the rest of the batter.

-Yes.

-I'm going to leave this here for a second while I talk about our pan setups.

Now, you can, and this is what I used to use when I would make macarons a thousand years ago... -It's an art project.

-Parchment paper.

You take a 1 1/2-inch circle.

We're making 1 1/2-inch macarons.

Trace it with a pencil.

-Mm-hmm.

-But, you know, technology keeps marching along.

-[ Chuckles ] -So, we have these beautiful silicone mats here that have these templates on them.

You want to make sure that you get one for this recipe that has a 1 1/2-inch circle.

And that's this middle one here with the larger dotted line.

-Oh, cool.

-Yeah.

So that's where I'm going to be aiming for.

So, we're using these flat pans without rims on two sides.

It's going to make it a lot easier to load this on and off of the sheet pan.

Now I just want to test this.

I'm going to take about a teaspoon of the mixture.

Try to get it in a lovely little circle.

So, we just need to let this sit for about a minute.

-Okay.

-If it flattens, we're good.

If not, it's more macaronage.

-Okay.

-It's flat.

-Perfectly round, too.

-It's gorgeous.

-Mm-hmm.

-Alright, so I'm going to use a pastry bag.

And this pastry bag has been fitted with a 1/2-inch tip.

And I've twisted the bottom -- just a little trick to do so it doesn't get too messy.

-Mm-hmm.

-Alright.

So, I'm going to scrape this in there.

So, now I just want to gather up this top here.

I'm going to let this fall down into the bottom.

So, I'm going to hold this about 1/2 inch above the silicone mat, right in the middle, holding the bag vertically.

Pipe a little bit and then do a quick flick to stop the flow of the batter.

-Ah!

-So, you can see it's coming out of the bag without even me pressing.

-Gorgeous.

Look at those perfect circles.

-Not too bad.

But I do want to give this a few raps just to break out any large bubbles that might be in there.

-Okay.

-So, six taps.

Alright, I'm going to pipe the rest, let them all sit for 20 minutes.

-Okay.

So, usually when we make a meringue, we are careful to preserve every last air bubble.

But when making macarons, we use a process called macaronage so that we strategically deflate some of the air bubbles.

Meringue naturally contains both large and small bubbles.

For macarons, we combine the meringue with an almond flour mixture and stir it thoroughly.

Over the course of stirring, the bubbles get swept around.

Some of them are pushed to the surface of the batter, where they deflate.

Others collide with particles of almond flour and break up into smaller bubbles.

Big bubbles, being bigger, are much more likely to run into obstacles than small bubbles are.

So the overall effect of stirring is to get rid of big bubbles while leaving plenty of small bubbles.

That's why when making macarons, we stir the meringue with the flour to get rid of the large bubbles that would otherwise destabilize the structure and mar the surface.

-Alright.

20 minutes has passed.

Now, these have formed a little bit of a skin here.

I just want to show you.

If I take my finger, just tap it on there, it doesn't really leave a mark.

This is very strategic for macarons because you want that steam to be trapped.

It won't be able to escape through the top very much, but it's going to go through the bottom and you get that little frilly foot.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

That's really a hallmark of great macarons.

These are going to bake for 13 minutes at 325 degrees.

But we found that the bottoms were still a little bit sticky at this 325 degrees.

So we lowered the rack to the lower-middle position, give a little bit more blast on the bottom.

If you only had one oven, you'd just bake them one sheet at a time.

But we have a thousand ovens here, so we can use at least two for this -- one sheet per oven.

That gives us some time to make our raspberry buttercream.

I've got 10 tablespoons of unsalted butter softened just a bit here.

You want to get rid of the whisk attachment for this and go back to the paddle attachment.

This is a mistake that I've made in the past, and sometimes the buttercream is just a little too fluffy, a little too airy.

This is going to do the job perfectly.

So, we're going to mix this on medium-high speed just to break up the butter a little bit, about 20 seconds.

Alright.

This is 1 1/4 cups of confectioners' sugar.

Just a little bit of salt -- a pinch.

So, now I'm going to mix this on medium-low just until this mixture comes together, about 45 seconds.

Alright, now we're going to increase the speed to medium.

Let it go for about 15 more seconds until it's fully moistened and comes together.

Mm, mm, mm.

There's nothing better than butter and sugar.

-Getting better every second.

-Exactly.

Alright.

Scrapey-scrapey.

We're going to add a tablespoon of heavy cream.

I want it to have a little bit more of a soft texture.

And a 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Use the good stuff here.

Alright.

So, I just want to mix it first at medium speed until the heavy cream is incorporated.

About 10 seconds should do it.

I'm going to increase the speed to medium-high.

We're going to let this go until it's nice and fluffy and thick.

That's going to take about four minutes.

I've got something for us to do in the meantime.

These are freeze-dried raspberries.

So, this is 1/3 cup.

I'm just going to pulverize this in my very cleaned-out spice grinder.

We don't want any cumin-scented raspberry macarons.

Alright.

Let's get this out of here.

There we go.

Raspberry powder.

-That is very cool.

-Mm.

Smell that.

-Ah!

It's an incredible ingredient.

-So, I just want to sieve this through a fine mesh strainer.

And especially with raspberries, sometimes there's those little cores.

They don't want to fully grind down.

-Oh, yeah.

It's mostly the seeds and cores left in that.

-Yeah.

There you go.

There's a snack for you.

-Ha!

-Alright.

Let's see if we have the correct fluffy texture.

Looks nice and creamy.

Isn't that gorgeous?

-Mm-hmm.

-Alright, now we're going to incorporate just about a tablespoon of our raspberry mixture to start.

You can always add more.

You can taste it after it's blended in there.

Medium speed, just until this is incorporated.

It's only about 30 seconds.

Alright.

Let's take a look here.

Scrape the bottom, make sure there aren't any pockets.

But look at this consistency.

-Oh, and that color.

It's fluffy.

It's pink.

-Buttercream is all set.

Let's go check on the macarons.

-Alright.

Those are gorgeous!

-Aren't they lovely?

Alright, so I do want to jiggle them just a little bit to see if they need a couple more minutes in the oven.

But these are looking great.

-Oh, yeah.

-So, we're going to let these cool down completely before we fill them.

-Okay.

-It's filling time.

You're at the filling station.

-Oh, I like it.

-These have cooled completely.

We're just about ready to fill them.

So I'm going to take a row here, just flip them upside down.

-The little feet around the bottom are perfection.

-Thank you.

-Mm-hmm.

-So, I went ahead and filled this pastry bag with the raspberry buttercream.

There's a 1/2-inch tip here at the bottom.

Now I'm going to add about 2 teaspoons of filling to the top of these overturned cookies.

And I will leave about an 1/8-inch border, like that.

And then I'm going to take another cookie and press it down gently just so the filling reaches the edge.

Alright, so I'm going to go down the line here.

You're going to be the topper and presser.

-I can do that.

-Once you fill the macarons, they actually have to go into the fridge for 24 hours.

It's called maturing the macaron.

And it allows that buttercream, some of the moisture to start to go into the meringue shell itself and get a little bit chewier.

It's beautiful.

So, a minimum of 24 hours.

But you can leave them up to a week, or you can put them in the freezer for up to two months.

-Wow.

-Good luck with that.

-Yeah.

-We've got that other batch to do, and then we're going to eat, and I might have a little surprise for you.

-[ Laughs ] -Payoff time.

-Bridget.

That is just a stunning platter.

It is just perfection.

-Aren't they lovely?

-Yes.

-Alright.

So, go ahead and help yourself.

-Mmm.

-You get the crunch and then you get the chew.

And then you get the flavor of the raspberries.

Not overpowering -- just enough to know, ah, that that's what the pink is signifying.

-Like, beautifully raspberried.

-Mm-hmm.

-If I may use that as a verb.

-I don't think I've ever had a macaron that's this perfect.

-Don't fill up on the raspberry, 'cause... -Oh-ho-ho!

You didn't!

-Well, these are just some of our variations.

Coffee, which has a beautiful coffee buttercream.

-Ooh!

-Pistachio.

That's got to be my favorite.

And then passion fruit.

It's got a passion fruit curd.

But all of these variations are available on our website.

-Bridget, thank you for breaking down this recipe and explaining it step by step so that it really will be foolproof.

-Absolutely.

My pleasure.

-If you want to make the perfect French macaron, make an Italian meringue by pouring a sugar syrup into whipping egg whites.

Smear the batter against the sides of the bowl to eliminate any large air bubbles.

Let the piped meringue cookies rest for 20 minutes before baking and sandwich a flavorful buttercream between the meringues.

From "America's Test Kitchen," the last word on macarons.

Yeah, bring that platter back over here.

-I'd say the last word is over here.

-[ Chuckles ] Passion fruit.

-Passion fruit.

-Mm!

-It's always a good idea to have a few recipes for party foods on hand, and one of my favorites is gougres.

Now, these lighter-than-air cheese puffs are actually quite easy to make, but the process can be a little intimidating.

But we've got the world's best teacher here with us, Julia, and she's going to show us how to make gougres.

-Yeah, they're delicious, but also a really easy way to learn how to make pte choux, which is the base for a lot of really cool baked goods like profiteroles or clairs or even a croquembouche.

-Ooh!

Fantastique!

-Yeah.

Now, pte choux is a cooked dough.

You make it in a saucepan.

But before we get cooking, you want to make sure you have everything prepped 'cause this dough comes together in a snap.

-Right.

-And we're going to start with the eggs.

Now, we're going to add two eggs, which is pretty classic.

But the one thing we found is that we're going to add an extra white.

And the white gives the dough a bit more structure so it can support all the cheese.

-Right.

-Also adds a little more liquid, which is great for steam, so you get that nice puff.

-Okay.

-Going to set that yolk aside.

So, to the eggs, we're going to add a little bit of salt.

This is 1/4 teaspoon of table salt.

When you add the salt to the eggs, it changes the protein structure of the eggs, makes them a little stronger.

-Mm-hmm.

-So you get a better loft in the finished gougre, and it doesn't take much time.

So, we're going to whisk this together.

Now, the other thing is we want to measure the amount here.

We're looking for 1/2 cup of the egg mixture.

Right on.

So, now it's time to start cooking.

So, in the saucepan I have 1/2 cup of water.

And over medium heat, we're going to add 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter.

Just a little bit of cayenne.

Just a little bit of kick to help that cheese flavor come alive.

And we're just going to bring this to a simmer before we add the flour.

Alright, this is just starting to come to a simmer, which is great.

I'm going to turn the heat to low, and I'm going to add the flour.

This is just all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup, or 2 1/2 ounces.

We're going to cook this until it forms a dough.

Takes only about 30 seconds.

You'll see the dough will start to form a ball, and it will no longer stick to the sides of the pan.

-I do love that you're using a saucier with the rounded bottom.

-Yes, it makes it so easy to not have to clean the corners.

You can see it's starting to form a ball.

That's pretty much it.

I'm going to turn the heat off.

I'm going to take this dough and put it right into the food processor.

I'm going to let it rip for five seconds to let it cool off, and then I'm going to start to add the eggs.

-Okay.

-I'm going to start to add the eggs in a slow, steady stream.

And now it's time to add the cheese.

We're going to use a whopping 4 ounces of cheese to this dough, but that's because we only used 2 tablespoons of butter.

Down on butter, up on cheese -- more flavor.

So, this is an aged Gruyre that we shredded.

If you have a moist cheese, again, too much moisture really weighs down the beautiful little puffs.

You want a Gruyre that's at least a year old.

Let it go for about 30 to 40 seconds until the cheese is nice and combined and it's glossy.

Alright.

Oh, there you go.

You can see the cheese looks like little pieces of cornmeal, and it's taken on that sheen.

Alright, so each gougre is a tablespoon.

And you take a little spoon and you just kind of drop it right onto the parchment-lined baking sheet.

You get about 24 of these, and you want to space them an inch apart.

There we go.

You could refrigerate this dough before shaping it for up to 24 hours.

Put a greased piece of parchment flush to the surface of the dough.

Then you can let it come to room temperature and you can go.

Now that they're all divided up, you do want to smooth the top.

So, take a spoon and some vegetable oil spray.

This will just prevent the spoon from sticking, and you can just smooth the tops and you can push them into a nice round.

-Lovely.

-Yeah.

Again, because the dough is cooked, you really have a lot of control.

So, these are ready for the oven.

Two things.

One, you'll notice I have two sheet pans here.

This is an extra layer of insulation that will prevent the bottoms from burning.

-Mm-hmm.

-The other thing is we're going to bake them in the upper part of the oven -- again, just to protect that bottom from burning.

-Okay.

-425 degrees.

Nice and hot, so you get a good puff.

They're going to take 14 to 20 minutes.

-Sounds good.

-Smell that?

-I sure do.

-Ah!

-It smells like cheese puffs.

-Oh!

It does.

Oh, these are perfect.

You can see they're browned on the top, but not on the bottoms.

You see how it's a little pale right on the bottom third?

That's perfect.

-Okay.

-Because we're going to let them finish in an off oven for 10 to 15 minutes.

And that finish baking time will help them brown completely, but also keep the exterior nice and crisp.

-Got it.

-Alright.

Oven closed.

Oven off.

10 to 15 minutes.

-Sounds good.

-Oh!

-Oh, lovely!

-Such a good smell.

-Aren't those great?

-Ah!

It makes the whole house smell lovely.

Alright, so you can see, these are nicely browned all the way through to the bottom, but the bottoms aren't burned.

Now we're going to get them right off this hot sheet pan, and we're going to put them on a wire rack.

They'll hold for about a day in an airtight container, but they freeze like a dream, up to a month.

And you would just want to re-crisp them for a few minutes in a hot oven.

Alright, so 15 minutes, then we can taste them.

-That's great.

-It's eating time.

-They're adorable.

-Aren't they?

I kind of love them all piled up.

-Well, I'm going to destroy that.

-Go ahead.

-I'm going to go in.

I'm going to go for the top.

And they're 90% air.

-It's true.

-Alright.

I'm going to crack into that.

Look at that.

-That air pocket.

-That air pocket is everything.

-It's the sign of a great gougre.

Steam to really get that puff, but the dough has enough structure to support that.

If the dough is too weak, it really kind of collapses and is breadier.

-Crisp on the outside.

-And the flavor of the cheese just really comes through.

-But think about all the different things you could do with them.

Maybe a little nutmeg or a little bit of thyme in there.

-Black pepper.

Make them just a little on the spicy side.

And the recipe is so easy.

-Yeah, definitely.

But you're always a great teacher.

-Thanks.

-Love hanging with you.

Well, if you would like to make these beautiful gougres, start with an egg mixture featuring an extra egg white, process in 4 ounces of Gruyre for bold cheese flavor, and leave the baked puffs in a turned-off oven for a super crisp exterior.

So, from "America's Test Kitchen," the perfect and petite party food, gougres.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with product reviews and select episodes.

And those are all on our website, americastestkitchen.com/tv.

-They go down easy, don't they?

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