What better way to start my blog than by setting myself a
bit of a challenge? I have an ever
growing list of things I’d like to attempt to create and number one on the list
is macaroons. After a couple of friends
recently asked me if I could make them (and I obviously said yes), I decided I
better see if I actually could! It’s not
like they’re one of the hardest things to make or anything.
The mere mention of macaroons elicits images of perfectly
round, pastel coloured treats packaged in beautiful boxes with a hint a Paris
surrounding them. Before last week if
anyone mentioned the greatness of macaroons to me all I envisioned was a sorry bag of crumbs that seemed to have
taken a much bumpier flight home from Paris than I had! Sorry for macaroons, but after that they
never really got another chance with me.
But now it was time to give them another chance. So I set
about finding the perfect recipe. Lesson
one in macaroon making… It is in fact
spelt macarons, so if all else failed, at least I got a spelling lesson out of
this!
I found a recipe in the Ideas magazine and judging the
recipe by its picture (as I always do), I decided that this would be the
winner. How hard could it be to recreate the picture?? Apparently harder than I thought!
Round 1 was disastrous for everyone expect my dog Crumpet
who thoroughly enjoyed the multi-coloured wannabe macarons. I could tell before
I even put them in the oven that they weren’t going to work, the texture was
very wrong for something that needed to be light and crispy. Both the recipe
and remaining macarons went into the bin and my search continued.
I looked a while to find another ‘perfect’ recipe but eventually
settled on Martha Stewart’s recipe for Parisian macarons. After deciding to
focus on just one colour instead of creating a rainbow of macarons, round 2
went much better. That is until I put them into the oven and my beautiful macarons
decided to join forces to become one. On
the plus side, they tasted much better than my first attempt and looked pretty
good. The recipe was right but it just
needed some fine tuning.
Before attempting round three I decided I needed some help, so I went and bought a macaron sheet. Ok, so it’s a bit of a cheat sheet, and I bet they don’t use them in Paris. But this is Joburg and I wasn’t going to let the macarons beat me. Apparently this was the final ingredient I needed in order to make the perfect macaron!
After waiting for them to set for an hour, I carefully
placed them in the oven and hovered around for 20 minutes watching my perfect
macarons evolve. Absolute perfection
came out of the oven, finished off with white chocolate ganache resulting in
the pure deliciousness that people always talk about. Macarons aren’t
impossible to make, they just require a bit of patience.
Next time I’m in Paris I’ll definitely eat my macarons as
soon as I buy them and rather bring home one of those super cool Eiffel tower key
rings as a memento – they travel much better!
