Food

French Macarons

In 2007 I discovered the famous French macarons. I visited Paris with my parents and we were in a macaron-mission, we visited some of the well known “Maisons du Macarons”: Laduree, La Maison du Chocolat and Fauchon. I am sure there are several more that we missed out on, Macarons being so trendy in the last decade.

Recently I woke up with the idea that these beautiful and delicious pastries couldn’t be that hard to make. I watched numerous you tube videos and read many recipes. I even went to Anthropologie and bought this cute little book called “Les Petits Macarons.”

Gathering the ingredients was not an easy task, but I finally completed the list with the powdered egg whites purchased at Whole Foods.

The main advice from every site and book was to pound the tray with your raw macaroon rounds. Pound it hard several times so the macarons would set and no air bubbles would break them during baking. I followed all the advice, I promise (most of the time I tweak recipes). I was not prepared for what came next. After all the hard work and money I was pretty frustrated. This was the result after trying to bake them three times:

Ok, so lets try one more time as I learn about my mistakes. Finally, a leap of faith.

And no, they are not even close to the beautiful French Macarons. My personal experience has been pretty frustrating, I usually do not like to lose in the cooking field, but I might just have given up on these delicious little creatures. Next time I visit France, or New York now that La Maison du Chocolat has several locations in Manhattan, I will not think twice about paying for a delicious macaron. Leave it to the professionals.