Macaroons

I had some egg whites left over from the pastry of the jam tart, and wanted to use them up, so made macaroons. Here's the recipe I used:

rice paper

2 egg whites

225g / 8 oz caster sugar

175g / 6 oz ground almonds

chocolate for decorating

1) Heat oven to 180 C

2) Line 2 baking trays with rice paper

3) Whisk eggs whites until stiff

4) Gently fold in egg whites and ground almonds

5) Put into a large piping bag with a 1cm/half inch plain nozzle and pipe fingers 7.5 cm /3 in long. Keep separated on the tray as they expand a lot.

6) Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown.

7) Remove excess paper and cool on a wire rack before decorating.

Here's how mine turned out:

The monster shapes and sizes are because I didn't have the right size piping nozzle, so just shaped them on the tray with my hands; I was a bit generous with the quantities. Also, I couldn't get hold of rice paper, so just used greaseproof/baking paper and removed it all.

They were nice and crispy on the outside, but chewy in the middle. I'm not exactly sure how they were supposed to turn out, but I liked them :)