Hibiscus macarons.

Finally I made it.....hibiscus macarons.

My baking wish list was getting longer and longer, but hibiscus macs passed the other items and came up on the top list. I have dried quite a lot of hibiscus and I made them into powder. My food processor is not powerful enough, so it's no as fine as the storebought powder.

I added about 7 grams of hibiscus powder for 50 gram of egg white,but its color didn't show up in the batter. Finally,I decided to add a tad of red powdered coloring to boost up the color and sprinkled some hibiscus powder on top of the batter before sending them to the oven.

Have you ever wondered if it's necessary to dry the skin of macs before baking?
I've tried the method of drying the skin in the oven at the temperature about 180F and then rebake again at 300F until cooked. The two step method works fine for me...but I still want an easier method.

In case you want to do some experiment.....let'see what I did.

I did not warm up the oven.....just set the tempertaure to 300F (or tempertature that you used to bake your macs). After piping the batter on silicone baking mat, I sent them to the oven and then turned on the oven. Yes, you read it right.....I didn't warm up the oven. Once the oven reach 190F, it took another 16 mins to bake the macarons. I just let my macarons sit inside the oven from start to finish without taking it out during the baking process. The feet shrink a bit when taking them out from the oven, but they were quite high in the oven. None of them cracked....and the result is what you see in this post.

To be honest, I am not sure that it was successful by accident or by luck......... but I did it. If I ever do it again, I will not forget to rotate the tray after the feet are fully developed in order to get an even color on my macs. I will keep you posted if I get lucky with this method next time!

As for the filling, I use cream cheese with some hibiscus powder added. It's really really good...tart but creamy. This flavour is a keeper....enjoy it with me!