“We have not wings we cannot soar; but, we have feet to scale and climb, by slow degrees, by more and more, the cloudy summits of our time.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
What are these invaluable things called FEET? When she failed 6 times making macs on a single morning trying to win over the first macattack, Deeba was DISTRAUGHT! Was in tears & constantly on twitter & on the phone with Aparna in Goa, taking non-stop about feet. Mr PAB had this very perplexed look but dared not utter a word. He finally mustered up the courage later when success 'happened' on the 7th attempt! What the hell are FEET? he asked. By which time feetless boxes of macs had been stuffed under sofas, inside cupboards ... everywhere. The next man who raised the FEET question was Mowie, and we thought to ourselves ... Is this 'FEET' question a girls' thing? The bunch of us just took to the word FEET nonchalantly & got down to baking...
Photo courtesy Sunita Bhuyan 
Underneath the top smooth shell of the macaron is a ruffled skirt called FEET.
Those feet are the centre of our MacTweet universe. We can live with them, but we can't live without them. We are emotional about 'em...
Underneath the top smooth shell of the macaron is a ruffled skirt called FEET. Those feet are the centre of our MacTweet universe. We can live with them, but we can't live without them. We are emotional about 'em...
From the wailing tweet... "Boohooo this batch had no feet", ...
...to the high pitched one in Cooking Ninja style "U'll get your feets dearie. Can see you jumping up & down in yr kitchen shouting 'I got feets! I got feets!' like u won lotto. ;)"... you can hear it loud and clear!"
~
Macpassionate & macobsessed, at the end of the day, it's all about FEET! Our world here had been narrowed down in perspective. This mac obssessed group sees FEET everywhere.
Besides real mac feet, we find feet elsewhere too. Nancy Sinatra now sings to us "These feet are made for walkin' ... and takes us back to days when the old LP record with her booming voice would play! Or when Colloquial Cook recently tweeted to Deeba, "I fell off my chair when I saw your macs". Her immediate tweetback " Shall I give you a 'feet' ... oops hand". We have Vino Luci talking about 'feet at size 11', and the party's on...
... Got a 'feet' tale? Share it here, share a giggle...
I have no tales of woe except on my last batch which were mixed. First mac tries came out perfect even though I had no idea what to expect, had never heard of feet and kept my nose pressed to the oven door watching and praying. And got perfect, huge feet. Only on my last batch half had tiny feet, half had none and were all cracked. But the second baking sheet of the same batch were perfect. So I think I didn't let the first sit out long enough before sticking them in the oven.
ReplyDeleteA word to the wary: feet begin appearing about halfway through the baking time, not sooner. So don't worry if you don't see them right away.
Getting the feet was never my problem. My big mac problem is that they get stuck to the paper and I cant get them to come off without destroying them... very frustrating indeed.
ReplyDeleteWhen i told we all are doing Mac again hubby was in depair as he like more savoury than swets. I have not yet started them a si would like to have few more days of sleep as i know when i start them i won't be able to sleep because of will there be or will there be not feet.
ReplyDeleteHeavenly housewife, i read in a comment secession in a blog were tartlette had written when they come out from the oven spray under the baking paper with water and then they are easy to remove.
I was 5 attempts and no feet, but today after reading the other posts here I got feet! I am so happy :)
ReplyDelete@heavenly housewife I bought a magic non-stick liner from lakeland which seems to stop the macs from sticking (at least most of time)
Wow! Look at the great blogroll! There are going to be lots of pretty feet!
ReplyDeleteHaha... o yes, those little feet!! My friends who have shared the misfortune of eating all my 'feetless' mac's have looked at me a little weird as I kept complaining about those feetless mac's. They thought the taste was fabulous as it was, so who cared about feet?? Who needs feet when you have a lovely cookie, they asked me... And that ladies and gentleman, is the difference between a true macaron and a simple cookie... The word is FEET!!
ReplyDeleteI got FLAT feet today (visible but tiny)! Was experimenting with the nuts and I think the oiliness made the feet a bit shy...ah well, maybe I need to get some arch support filling in there quick smart :)
ReplyDeleteLast week, I prepared some macarons for my friend, this time I tried different flavours and colours (I used powder food colouring instead of liquid) and they turned out much better than my firt ones. They had that shiny smooth surface and a lot of FEET lol. You may have a look at them here:
ReplyDeletehttp://moroccancuisinemarocaine.blogspot.com/2009/11/my-attempt-to-try-to-make-macarons-with.html
Sorry I'm a new member and don't know how to post them here :).
However, I should work more on my filling, I'm very limited with chocolate and strawberry jam .
Have a great day!
@Mamatkamal - Post the macs on your blog around Dec 10 and let either me or Deeba via e-mail or on this blog that you've posted and we will be posting the round up with pics and links to everyone's posts. Welcome to our Mac World!
ReplyDelete@Heavenly Housewife! I have found that if the macs are cooked enough (no longer wet inside when touched) and when I leave them to cool ON the parchment paper they don't stick IF I use a thin metal spatula and scrape under them, very carefully using the spatula to scrape them and lift them off the parchment. If I try to lift them they break.
Hi! Please count me in. I will be away on vacation around Dec 10 but i have made some macarons recently. Here's my link: http://theamateurbaker.blogspot.com/2009/11/macarons-three-3-flavored.html
ReplyDeletemade these raspberry white choc macarons for the mactweets challenge! http://heavenwildfleur.blogspot.com/2009/11/raspberry-white-chocolate-macarons.html can't wait to see everyone's macs!
ReplyDeleteHello everyone, I made these macarons for Mactweets Challenge, Mint and Chocolate Macarons, hope you like them. http://moroccancuisinemarocaine.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteCheers
Love this - what a great idea!
ReplyDeleteAfter one too many failed Mac attempts, I've learnt that you'll only get feet if your macs develop a skin before going into the oven, and you'll get this if your batter has the right ratio of wet to dry ingredients and is not overly wet. Basically you'll want to minimize the amount of liquid in the batter (by using powdered coloring and flavors) so that the meringue can do its work and help produce cute, delicate feet :)
ReplyDelete