During my year in Scotland, I stumbled upon Nigella Lawson’s How to Be A Domestic Goddess.  With access only to the student kitchens in Chattan (where I only needed to cook for myself on weekends), I saw no urgency to buy this book, but I thought the title was aspirational.

Five years later, still unprepared after feeble attempts to learn how to cook (and laughable equipment), I bought my own copy, specifically for this recipe.  After a dozen more years, I have enough practice to execute the book’s contents, and now, I can even simplify and Americanize the ingredients list, which I am attempting to do here.

[This is my prompt to remember to connect with a couple friends to verify that this work changing process qualifies this as an original recipe, which it probably shouldn’t; even if I did, I would have to mention my debt to Nigella here.]

Equipment needed
Food processor with S-blade, mixer with balloon whisk attachment (or beaters), digital scale set to metric, silicone spoonula/spatula, gallon-size freezer bag, silicone baking mat, cookie sheet

Ingredients
For the Macaroons:
75g pistachios
125 g confectioner’s sugar
2 large egg whites
15 g ground granular sugar (because the caster sugar called for is generally finer than American granulated sugar)

For the filling (pistachio buttercream):
25g pistachios
125 g icing sugar
62g unsalted butter, softened

Preheat the oven to 355 degrees F.  You have a little quality time with the macaroons, so if this isn’t the first thing you do, it’s okay. 

If you have a smaller food processor or a smoothie cup blender, grind the 15g of granulated sugar.  If you are using a full-size food processor, that small amount might hide under the blade, so instead, grind half a cup or so and stock up on easy-dissolve sugar for later.  Whatever amount you make, tip out the ground sugar from the food processor and set it aside for later on.

Weigh the pistachios and confectioner’s sugar into the emptied bowl of the food processor with the s-blade in the center (a little residue from grinding the sugar in the prior step is okay), and grind until as fine “as dust” (to quote Nigella)—the nuts heat up and the sugar absorbs the oil they release. 

Whip the egg whites in a standing mixer (or a hand mixer) until stiff, then add 15g grams of the ground sugar to the egg whites and keep whipping until very stiff (you could flip the bowl and everything will stay in it…I mean *don’t,* but you could).

Add the pistachio-sugar dust spoon by spoon to the egg whites in their mixing bowl.  Heft from the nuts always seems to deflate the air in the whites, but the resulting macaroons are still light and delicious.  Scrape this mixture into a gallon-sized freezer bag (it’s sturdier), and push the dough to one corner.  Snip the tip of that corner about ½” wide, and squeeze into 1½”inch rounds on a silicone baking mat.  The rounds can be close together.  Wet your finger to pat down any peaks and then allow the rounds to sit for about 10-15 minutes so that a skin forms on their surface.  Bake 10-12 minutes until the rounds are set, remove them from the oven and allow them to cool on the mat.

For the filling:  using the same setup in the food processor as before, grind 27g pistachios and 125g icing sugar together.  Add the 62g softened butter and whip it up (if you have Nigella’s original recipe, this technique is different; my food processor makes smoother filling, and minimizes the number of bowls you need to clean—you just clean once when you are done with everything).  I have halved the amount of filling in Nigella’s recipe because I always have SO much extra (it’s popular on graham crackers in my house, so if you want to double up the filling, go ahead).

Spoon the filling into the same bag from the rounds (or a fresh one), clip the corner, and squeeze a little filling onto a bottom cookie, then carefully pop a top on.  DON’T press.  The rounds are delicate.

Makes 20 sandwiched cookies (I always get more than 40 rounds so I can let my family quality test them).