Welcome to The Cookie Monster, a blog about the most marvelous, versatile, and beloved bakeable item in the land: The cookie. You may see occassional forays into pies, bars, and other sweet treats, but my main focus is and has always been on the bite sized genius behind my very favorite snack. Happy Baking!

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Hazelnut Macarons with Nutella Buttercream


Happy Saturday night blog friends!  What does one do on the weekends when drinking and going out is not an option (pregnancy week 29....getting there!) well, if you're me...you make cookies, so I decided to go for round two of the tricky yet delicious Macaron.  I wanted to see if I could remedy the cracky situation by switching up the rack positions in the oven....


I followed the same recipe, only using hazelnut extract in place of vanilla, and things were looking good when I piped the macarons onto the cookies sheet....but then, once again, partial disaster struck....


Curses!!!!!!  But I got about a half batch of pretty ones....

 
The house smelled delightful, and I quite liked the hazelnut version of these little guys.... I whipped up a quick buttercream frosting with nutella, recipe below:

Ingredients:
1/4 cup of butter, softened
1/4 cup of nutella
1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar
2-4 tablespoons of milk



Blend together the nutella and butter, scraping down the size of the bowl, add in your powdered sugar and mix until evenly blended.  Finally, add in the milk, a little at a time, until the frosting is at your desired consistency.


I decided to pipe the frosting this time to keep things cleaner, which worked out well, then I sandwiched the cookies.  They really are best the day after baking (I know, I know, baked goods anomaly) so I stored the majority in the fridge for tomorrow :)


Yum! This version is very tasty!  And I think I will go ahead and officially make September macaron month since I need to attempt this at least one more time to try to alleviate the cracking issue.  I think I am going to lower the oven temp 10-15 degrees next time, and bake the cookies slightly longer.  It seems like the bottom rack of cookies is too hot, and the ones that come out perfectly are not quite done when the 18 minute baking time is up.


I also think the cracking could be caused by the way I'm piping the batter.  the cracks looks suspiciously like my swirl pipe pattern, don't they?  Maybe I'll try something different on that front as well....

Until next time, blog friends.... I hope you're all out having rockin' Saturday nights.  I'm gonna eat some Macarons, and go to sleep!

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