There are categories of food I love; sushi, Mexican, carbs. One you may not think of when looking at me is dainty. I adore anything tiny and cute and especially tiny, cute and edible like tea sandwiches or those perfect meringue based confections, French macarons. Not only are they aesthetically pleasing like chic little hat boxes but their texture is a beautifully choreographed dance of light and crispy, soft and chewy. The flavor combinations are endless but I am a purist with vanilla being my favorite.
But these beauties hold a sinister secret. They are so friggin’ hard to make! No wonder these finicky petite shits cost upwards of $2.00 a piece, it’s a complete culinary monopoly! But when I came across a recipe that would yield 42 of these bite-sized bitches (at least $105 worth!), I decided to attempt to make them myself. This is my story.
As a somewhat decent baker I figured I would be able to handle these no problem. The recipe is deceptively simple; almond flour, egg whites, sugar. It also starts off rather benign; beating the egg whites until they form stiff peaks, sifting the flour and sugar together to make a really fine powder. Sure it may be a little time consuming but no real skill required.
So at first you think “oh I’ve got this, what’s the big deal?” Then you come to the next step: folding. I am no stranger to folding. I have folded with the best of them and my chocolate soufflé is nothing to sneeze at so I was undaunted, living in a fool’s paradise. The fact that it had a very specific number of folds should have tipped me off (65 to be exact). It also mentioned the batter viscosity you should look for, like thick lava. Guess I should have paid more attention in geology.
I began counting my strokes whilst scraping the bowl still confident in my ability to pull these off. After 65 folds it looked lava-ish to me and so I moved on to the next step, piping. This was actually the step I was most afraid of. I owned a piping bag but had very little experience using it and my worries increased when the batter seemed to be going everywhere instead of into the bag. There was also a suggestion to use a template drawn on parchment paper that I ignored, rookie mistake. I should have known better as I am completely inept at drawing a circle with a pencil let alone with a bag of goop.
At last I piped my tops and bottoms onto the sheet and was able to move on to the next step which I rather enjoyed…beating the crap out of them! Dropping the pan (evenly) and repeatedly to get the air bubbles out. After that you let them rest before baking. It was during this time I whipped up the vanilla buttercream that would be the filling. About 30 minutes later and with a cautiously optimistic heart, I put the shells in the oven.
Fast forward through the cooling and filling parts…I had myself some French macarons. Sort of. The good news? I had feet! The ruffled pedestal that is the trademark of a good macaron. And they tasted delicious! The bad news? Instead of 42 delicate sandwich cookies, I got 9. Somewhere between my apparent incorrect viscosity and filling the piping bag, I lost 33 cookies worth of batter and hard work.
Since this disastrous first attempt I have tried thrice more. I even used tips out of a book my Mom got me entitled “Macarons Made Easy”…the author is obviously a sarcastic asshole. Part of me fears I will forever be resigned to forking over the dough if I want to enjoy these pretencious bastards as God intended.
But the fighter in me won’t surrender to a pastry! I will prevail. Next time I will use a template. Next time my lava will flow as if erupting out of Mount Vesuvius itself. Next time I will shoot for a baker’s dozen. And on the day my efforts produce $105 worth of perfect, envy worthy macarons, I will shout triumphantly from the rooftops “up yours, France!”
