Love is in the air and it’s time to consider what delectable sweet treats to share with the ones we love. It’s also time for the monthly MacTweets challenge!

For those of you unfamiliar, Mac Tweets is made up of people all over the world mesmerized and obsessed with a little French cookie called the macaron. For February, the Mac Tweets theme is – and how could it not be – Valentine’s Day!

These simple little cookies can produce such frustration, that even the most accomplished baker approaches the oven with not a little trepidation when the timer goes off. I have tried all the famous recipes, and some not-so-famous ones. But, I have finally refined the basic recipe and technique to a point where I’m getting consistent results and feel comfortable sharing what I’m doing, with you:

RJ’s Basic Macaron Recipe

Ingredients:

1 rounded cup blanched, slivered almonds
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

3 egg whites
1/8 tsp. cream of tartar
2 Tbs + 1 tsp. granulated sugar

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 300º. Prepare 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.

Place the almonds and powdered sugar in the bowl of a food processor, and run until the nuts are superfine and combined with the sugar. Sift the mixture into a bowl and set aside.

In a larger glass or metal bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy. Sift in the cream of tartar and sugar, and continue beating until glossy, stiff peaks form.

Fold half of the nut/sugar mixture into the egg whites until nearly incorporated. Add the other half and continue to fold until the whites are completely incorporated, with no white streaks showing. The batter is the right consistency when a bit of batter dropped from a spoon onto a flat plate loses its peak in a few seconds. If the peak remains, give the batter two or three additional folds and test again.

Load the batter into a pastry bag with a large round tip and pipe into circles about 1-1/2″ in diameter onto the baking sheets, keeping them about 1-1/2″ or more apart. If decorating your macs, this is the time. For these Valentine Macs, I placed a 1/2″ heart-shaped cutter on top of the mac, and lightly sprinkled red sanding sugar inside till the surface was completely covered, then gently removed the cutter in a straight-up motion.

Leave the macarons out on the counter for at least 45 minutes to dry. You may have to let them sit longer in higher humidity. They’re ready to bake when they’ve formed a light skin over the top. Touch one lightly with your finger. If it feels dry and not sticky, you’re good to go.

Bake for 18 – 20 minutes. Allow to cool, remove from pans with offset spatula and fill if and how desired.

Filling continues to be my personal bugaboo. So I didn’t fill these. But they’re so light and crispy – yet chewy on the inside – that I decided to leave well enough alone.

For more Valentine’s Day cookie options, try these Linzer Torte Cookies, cut in heart shapes, or these Stained Glass Lemon Cookies, with heart cut-outs!

Welcome back for Day 5 of The 12 Days of Cookies, and since it’s Saturday, it’s also PhotoHunt Day. The theme for the PhotoHunt this week, is “Curved.” I think you’ll agree that these Hazelnut Linzer cookies fit the bill!

In case you’re wondering what’s going on, I was invited to participate in a project to bake and blog about 12 cookies in 12 days (December 1-12), choosing from the 2008 Bon Appétit Holiday Cookie-a-Day collection. We were free to choose any 12 cookies from the 31 recipes in the collection, in any order and compare notes. You didn’t know I had it in me, did you?

On with the cookies, and the PhotoHunt!

First the recipe, then my notes:

Hazelnut Linzer Cookies with Blackberry Jam

Preparation

Notes:

If you’ve stopped by to see the first four installments of this series, you won’t be surprised to learn that here’s another really soft dough for a cut-out cookie. In fact, you’re probably pretty sick of reading me bitch about it. Fine. Not another word. You can’t say you weren’t warned. I’ll just say this: Keep the bench flour close. You’ll need it. And when cutting out the tops of the cookies, take them to the cookie sheet before cutting out the “Linzer eye” and cut it out in place.

This is a very tender cookie, a nice way of saying “more delicate than it looks.” It’s very crispy, but in my opinion, might have benefited from using the whole eggs, rather than just the yolks, to give them a little more backbone. As it were.

Yes, Linzers are traditionally round, although the “eye” can be virtually any shape. But, you know, I have the cutters in various sizes, so why not use them?

Also? I didn’t have any blackberry jam, so I substituted lingonberry. That should be the tip-off that we spent some time in the Ikea store awhile back.

Please visit my partners in holiday baking, below, and see what they’ve got in store for you. They’re not PhotoHunting, but their photos are guaranteed to make you drool! And don’t forget to come back tomorrow for the sixth installment!

Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes (honorary member and our founder but not participating this year)
Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen
Courtney of Coco Cooks
Di of Di’s Kitchen Notebook
Judy of No Fear Entertaining
Kelly of Sass & Veracity
Michelle of Big Black Dog
RJ of Flamingo Musings (hey! that’s me!)
Sandy of At the Baker’s Bench
Tiffany of The Nesting Project