Pistachio Macarons

For my first Sunday recipe book challenge I have made the pistachio macarons from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess. Macarons are notoriously difficult so I began baking these very apprehensively. But apart from some technical issues with my piping bag, these lovely little macarons were actually pretty easy to make. I think having an electric whisk for the egg whites and a blender for the pistachios made the whole process a lot easier!

Ingredients 

For the macarons (makes 20)

75g shelled pistachios

125g icing sugar

2 large egg whites

15g caster sugar 

For the pistachio buttercream

55g shelled pistachios

250g icing sugar

125g unsalted butter, softened

Method

Pistachio macarons

1. Preheat your oven to 180ºC. 
2. Put your shelled pistachios and icing sugar into a food processor and blend until the mixture is as fine as dust. Pour this into a mixing bowl.
3. Whisk your egg whites in a separate mixing bowl until fairly stiff and then sprinkle in the caster sugar. 
4. Fold the whites into the blitzed pistachios and icing sugar (I actually sieved the mixture after it had been blended to ensure that it was really fine) and combine gently. 
5. Put the macaron mixture into a piping bag with a plain 1cm nozzle. Pipe a small amount of the mixture onto the corners of two baking trays and place greaseproof paper onto the tray. Pipe small rounds onto the baking trays (you should be able to do about 40, to make 20 macarons). Leave them for 10 minutes so they can form a skin. 
6. Put your macarons into your preheated oven for 10 minutes - they should be set, but not dried out. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. Once they have cooled you can make the pistachio filling.

Pistachio buttercream

1. Like before, blend the pistachios and icing sugar together in the food processor until they are fine. 
2. In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and then add the pistachios and icing sugar and continue creaming together. I added a splash of milk as the buttercream seemed very stiff, but you can see how you get on. 
3. To finish your pistachio macarons you can either pipe or spread the buttercream onto one macaron and pop another on top and sandwich them together. 

I really hope that you have enjoyed this 'challenge' recipe. I would normally steer clear of something like macarons purely because I have heard how difficult they are. I'm glad that I tried making them, and although they aren't as beautiful as the macarons in Ladurée, I've definitely boosted my baking confidence by trying out something new. I hope that this spurs on anybody who has been put off by the humble macaron's difficult reputation :) I also think I'm going to make some more of these cute little treats in different flavours so keep your eyes peeled for those!

P.S: Nigella calls these 'macaroons', but I believe these to be called 'macarons' - I'm not totally sure but I think macaroons are the coconut cookie type cake. Let me know and please correct me if I'm wrong!