Macaron Madness

My daughter, Zoe, loves watching baking shows…and then testing her own baking skills. French macarons make regular appearances, so it came as no surprise when Zoe told me she wanted to make some macarons. We agreed that she was in charge of finding a recipe and would have to accompany me to the grocery store.

Attempt #1

Evidently, macarons are a more persnickety dessert and not recommended for beginners. However, we did not let that deter us. Zoe found a marshmallow s’mores recipe on Pinterest and, with our ingredients laid out before us, we got to work. She did all the measuring, but her arm got tired holding the hand mixer. Once we put the mixture in a piping bag, I thought something seemed amiss because the dough still seemed both runny and clumpy at the same time…not a good sign, but we pressed on. Besides, how much could it really matter? Once the dough was on the baking sheet, it spread like melting ice cubes so our cookie shells were more oval than circle. Zoe’s favorite part of the whole recipe was (intentionally) dropping the pan on the counter repeatedly to get the bubbles out.

While our macarons cooked, Zoe made the chocolate ganache filling by melting the remnants of our chocolate chip stash and what was left of a bar of dark chocolate that I don’t remember how we got because I’m more of a milk chocolate kind of girl. Then Zoe taste-tested the marshmallow fluff we had bought specifically for this project and decided she didn’t like it, thus turning our s’mores macarons into chocolate macarons topped with an extra dollop of chocolate. While it is safe to say they did not look like the picture, they were tasty, albeit a bit chewy.

Attempt #2

Weeks later, I found a local company that offered a workshop for French Macarons and signed us up. When the day finally came, we arrived at the cooking school ready to conquer the macarons. We were in a small, intimate class of five pairs of students. Our instructor gave us some history about the cookies and, as an English nerd, I asked if it was pronounced “ma-ca-ROON” or “ma-ca-RON” as I have heard it both ways.

Apparently, those are two different words for two completely different cookies and we would be making French macaRONs. We soon learned that our instructor was meticulous in her baking methods and she assured us that every single student she had taught had successfully baked a macaron. The “perfect” macaron was small (about the size of a quarter) and slightly chewy (I was happy to hear this fact as our first batch had, indeed, been chewy). They are also supposed to raise in the oven slightly to have a “foot” (the separation of the dough between the bottom and top of the cookie shell. See? I learned).

Zoe and I shared a mixing station and she took point. All the ingredients had been previously measured and laid out for us, which made me feel a bit like we were cheating (but that was probably why her students had such a high success rate). Her recipes also called for measurements in kilograms – by weight, not volume — for the sake of accuracy.

I figured out where we had gone wrong with attempt #1. Apparently, when you mix the egg whites and sugar, your end product should resemble something akin to shaving cream, which can take fifteen minutes of straight mixing. After adding flour and powdered sugar to our “shaving cream,” we were then instructed to flatten the batter against the sides of the bowl for several minutes to remove most of the air from the mixture. We got to choose our own food coloring for both the dough and the filling (Zoe’s was orange while mine was blue).

Then we put the dough (no lumps in sight!) into a piping bag and squeezed it into little circles onto our trays. The instructor even gave us little paper templates to make sure our circles were the correct size. After each row we had to bang the tray against the counter to get out the air bubbles and use a toothpick to flatten the little points that inevitably form when squishing macaron dough out of a pipe bag. I have a tendency to dole out large portions, so I intentionally tried to counteract that; ironically, my circles ended up on the small side. Zoe’s, on the other hand, were a little large and had to stay in the oven a few extra minutes.

While we waited for our cookies to cool, we made our Swiss Meringue Buttercream filling. Zoe added red food coloring and raspberry flavoring to hers while I made a plain chocolate ganache. Our cookies may not have been perfectly circular, but they sure were tasty and did not last long in our house. Oddly, I preferred the ones Zoe made and she preferred mine. Not huge on desserts that aren’t brownies, Nik sampled one or two of each but I’m pretty sure I ate at least half of them by myself.

Attempt #3

More than a month later, Zoe wanted to make macarons yet again — this time mixed berry with lemon curd. I could totally get on board with that. I found a recipe online for raspberry lemon macarons to see what kind of flavoring to use and how much (in case you’re curious, 10 ounces of freeze-dried berries). My favorite part was smashing the whole bag with a rolling pin and — voila — organic(ish) berry flavors. We decided to use the lemon curd recipe I’d found online instead of the buttercream recipe because I wasn’t sure if the eggs in the buttercream would work with the lemon juice I needed to add…plus the lemon curd recipe had fewer ingredients so, win-win.

Have you ever eaten French toast with just butter and powdered sugar? You know when the butter melts and the powdered sugar dissolves in it creating a creamy frosting that makes your French toast taste more like a dessert? That’s what we got when we mixed the first two out of the three ingredients of our filling. Then came the lemon juice. As a lemon lover, I thought 3 TBSP wasn’t a lot. Then we mixed and tasted. Personally, I liked the sweet/tart combination but Zoe thought it was a bit overwhelming and I knew better than to think Nik would eat it voluntarily if he knew what it was (he does NOT appreciate sour), so we left half of our mixed berry macaron shells plain.

Zoe was worried that the shape of her macarons wouldn’t be “perfect” according to our instructor’s standards, but I explained to her that they didn’t have to look exactly the way she had taught us because (1) they were going to be delicious anyway, and (2) a little creativity gave them personality. So, while our third batch of macarons came out roughly the right consistency and size, we did get slightly imaginative with the shapes. I made mostly circles and a couple hearts. Zoe’s came out more cloud-shaped, which I think add to their charm. At any rate, those things are freaking delicious and I think the raspberry with lemon mixture is my favorite because I am sucking those darn little things down like candy and have already lost count of how many I’ve had today (six maybe?). This is why I should not bake. If anyone has a recipe for delicious food that makes you lose weight (without, of course, poisoning myself), by all means, please don’t be shy. My jeans will thank you.