Things to do with eggs. Part 1

Eggs - so versatile and so easy to whip up. I can't imagine baking without eggs in my fridge. But they are becoming so expensive, that I just get them from the markets nowadays. And getting it at the markets are not cheap either - $8.50 for a tray of 30 but they are not exactly the large ones either! That will only last me, uhmmm, 2 weeks if I don't use it for breakfast/lunch/dinner.

I wanted to try making macaroons. There seems to be such a craze for these delectable, cute, little morsels and I can't get them from where I live. So the only way to taste them is to make them myself. After researching many food blogs, I got the gist that it is just meringue, sugar and ground nuts as the basic ingredients. But if I use the egg whites for the meringue, what can I do with the egg yolks!!! That will be another story.

So I went in search for almond meal, but they were roughly $4.00 for a packet of 100gm. So cheapskate me decided to buy peanuts and ground it myself. Although most people will buy unsalted peanuts, I went for the easiest and cheapest types of nuts, which was of course roasted, salted peanuts. It saved me the trouble of having to roast it myself *grins*

Peanut Choc Macaroon

Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups unsalted peanuts (122 grams)
2 cups icing sugar
1/4 cup sugar
4 large egg whites

Method

1. Ground the peanuts and the icing sugar together until they resemble almond meal. (Most recipes uses ground almond meal).
2. Pour mixture into a large mixing bowl.
3. In a greasefree bowl, place the egg whites and whisk until soft peaks form (usually 2 minutes on high speed), then slowly add in the sugar while continuing to beat on a medium speed for another minute until hard peaks form.
4. Continue beating the eggs on the lowest speed for half a minute so that the air trapped within are finer.
5. Add 1/4 of the meringue into your peanut meal and fold gently but quickly.
6. Repeat step 5 until the meringue is fully combined with the peanut meal mixture.
7. The batter should be like molten lava and does not look too fluffly (unlike a pavlova) so do not fret.
8. Add in any colouring you desire (but I left mine plain).
9. Place batter into piping bag with a round, size 12 nozzle.
10. Squeeze batter onto a baking parchment placed on a baking tray, until the circle is roughly 2 - 2.5 cm in diameter.
11. CRUCIAL POINT: Leave piped batter to stand for 25 mins, to allow the skin to form.
12. Place in a preheated oven and bake for 15 mins at 150 degrees Celcius.
13. Take out of oven. Allow it to cool on baking tray.
14. Remove from trays and match similar sized macaroons together.
15. Sandwich with chocolate cream filling.
16. Enjoy.

Note:

• Take note of the crucial point, otherwise you'll end up with macaroons that are pretty sad looking like some of mine (see picture on baking tray, and spot the mishaps) as I didn't read other people's blogs properly and did what I felt like doing. Then I remembered that I read somewhere that the skin must form before placing it in the oven.
• Chocolate cream filling is just chocolate buttercream leftover from my jaffa cupcakes.