anyone make LC parisian macaroons?

[Goanna]

I was watching Food TV last week and saw something called a parisian macaroon. It was a chocolate macaroon, but it's flourless. It was made with egg whites. They didnt actually show a recipe for them, but the cookie part I am guessing is basically Egg White, Chocolate (powder or melted) and Sugar. Then they would put two of them together with a chocolate ganache filling between them.

They looked really good and got me thinking, this should be easily made into a low carb recipe.

However, I am having hard enough of a time trying to find a normal recipe for this, nevermind a low carb version.

Has anyone ever made these or came accross a recipe for a similar cookie?

I may wind up just experimenting to see what I can do, but I would love a recipe to at least give me a general idea of the ingredients.

http://www.jphevin.com/presse/macarons.jpg

Here's a picture of them, all different flavors.

[Goanna]

Well I just decided to search for "French Macaroons" instead of Parisian Macaroons and I came up with more results.

Here's one recipe, and from the looks of it substituting some splenda for the sugar should make this a very low carb recipe.

http://www.ffcook.com/pages/Wquestarch39.htm

And here are the real ones I was looking for.
http://www.epicurean.com/featured/french-chocolate-macaroons-recipe.html

I am definitly going to try these in the next few days. I will post back with my results.

[scott123]

French macaroons rely, to a large extent, on the texture of sugar. Splenda provides sweetness but not texture. Polydextrose provides sugary texture, but it attracts too much water and it doesn't work for meringues. If you can tolerate them, sugar alcohols work well in meringues- specifically maltitol or isomalt.

For those sensitive to sugar alcohols, thickenthin notsugar might help a little bit texture wise.

The French macaroons that I've had have always been filled with buttercream- never ganache, not even the chocolate ones. Maltitol and isomalt work well in buttercream as well.

[Elizellen]

This is the recipe I use

Posted somewhere by a Gail Banner (I didnt make a note of the URL)
2½ oz of unsweetened desiccated coconut
5 tablespoons of powdered heat resistant sweetener or equivalent liquid sweetener (I used 50% each of splenda and polydextrose)
4 fl oz of double cream
½ teaspoon of almond essence
½ teaspoon of vanilla essence
2 egg whites

Combine together well, the sweetener, cream, coconut, and essences. Leave the mixture for about ½ an hour.
Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4, 180°C.
Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form and then fold in to the coconut mixture.
Put a teaspoon at a time, of the mixture on to a greased baking sheet and bake for about 15 mins, until browned.

When I made them I sandwiched them with sweetened cream cheese for my DH.
========================
another simpler recipe posted by
Jfarmer at www.Lowcarbfriends.com

1 1/4 cups unsweetened coconut meat
1/2 cup splenda
1 egg

Beat egg and sugar substitute till creamy.
Add coconut
Spoon onto baking sheet
Bake at 300 for 12 -15 min.

These were a different consistency but still nice.

[IslandGirl]

This is the recipe I use

Posted somewhere by a Gail Banner (I didnt make a note of the URL)
2½ oz of unsweetened desiccated coconut
5 tablespoons of powdered heat resistant sweetener or equivalent liquid sweetener (I used 50% each of splenda and polydextrose)
4 fl oz of double cream
½ teaspoon of almond essence
½ teaspoon of vanilla essence
2 egg whites

Combine together well, the sweetener, cream, coconut, and essences. Leave the mixture for about ½ an hour.
Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4, 180°C.
Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form and then fold in to the coconut mixture.
Put a teaspoon at a time, of the mixture on to a greased baking sheet and bake for about 15 mins, until browned.

When I made them I sandwiched them with sweetened cream cheese for my DH.
========================
another simpler recipe posted by
Jfarmer at www.Lowcarbfriends.com (http://www.Lowcarbfriends.com)

1 1/4 cups unsweetened coconut meat
1/2 cup splenda
1 egg

Beat egg and sugar substitute till creamy.
Add coconut
Spoon onto baking sheet
Bake at 300 for 12 -15 min.

These were a different consistency but still nice.

These are Coconut Macaroons, which though very very nice, aren't classic Meringues.

http://www.epicurean.com/featured/f...ons-recipe.html (http://www.epicurean.com/featured/french-chocolate-macaroons-recipe.html)

This recipe should adapt well. One thing I would suggest that may not be obvious...dissolve your sweeteners in the cream and not in the chocolate; just works better. And if you have any polydextrose or are using sugar alcohols in your sweetener arsenal, pulsing at least some of that with the almonds will make the rest of the job easier, I think. Though I haven't actually tried it yet... ;)

;)

[glendarc]

Ooohh Jude! What a yummy looking recipe!! One question - does anyone know offhand how much ground almond flour/meal would equal 1 cup of whole almonds? Would you think about 1/4 cup? I could always grind whole almonds and find out, but in case anyone already knows, it's always simpler to ask first!

Thanks, Glenda

[IslandGirl]

Ooohh Jude! What a yummy looking recipe!! One question - does anyone know offhand how much ground almond flour/meal would equal 1 cup of whole almonds? Would you think about 1/4 cup? I could always grind whole almonds and find out, but in case anyone already knows, it's always simpler to ask first!

Thanks, Glenda

Go by weight not by volume (because freshly ground almonds will be "fluffier" than settled stored ground almonds).

So, the weight of 1 C of ground almonds, per my notes, is 95g or thereabouts. Close enough to 100g that I'd use it (easier to remember), which is very very close to 3.5 oz (weight not fluid). So grind up 3.5 oz or 100g of whole almonds. It's easier to go by the target amount, BTW, rather than the starting amount (of 1 C of whole almonds complete with air spaces, etc.). You might want to keep a note of how much 1 C of whole almonds actually weighs, or vice versa, how many Cups or fractions of Cups the 100g of whole almonds takes up, for future use.

Does that help? If it doesn't, I'll go peek in my MasterCook and see what it says (tho I generally prefer my empirical proven weights and measures notes, as above).


:wave:

[scott123]

According to the USDA database, almonds weigh out like this:

1 cup, ground 95g
1 cup, sliced 92g
1 cup, slivered 108g
1 cup, whole 143g

Glenda, if you're grinding almonds for this recipe, make absolutely sure they're blanched. Almond skins would be disastrous for a delicately flavored confection such as this.

[glendarc]

Thanks Jude and Scott - I'll weigh out my pre-ground almonds and give it a try but I may wait until I get an order of pdx - I have a feeling it just might make the difference between super and mediocre results!

Weird that a cup of whole almonds weighs more than ground - with all the air spaces between whole nuts, you'd think ground would be a lot denser ...

Glenda

[IslandGirl]

Weird that a cup of whole almonds weighs more than ground - with all the air spaces between whole nuts, you'd think ground would be a lot denser ...


Probably overbalanced by all the no-space (densely packed molecules) in the almonds themselves...

:wave: