There is a part of me that longs to be a French pastry chef. The idea of mixing, baking and piping little bits of heaven sounds so ... well, heavenly. My latest fascination has been with macarons, not to be confused with macaroons. I have had one from my favorite little pastry shop in Ashland called Mix; and from the first bite of that hazelnut pastry, I was hooked.
Recently I discovered a charming blog called Tartelette that features enchanting recipes and many of them are for macarons. Inspired, I decided that today was the day for trying out these decadent treats.
The first thing I had to do was convert a lot of her measurements (i.e. grams into cups, because she is a real French pastry chef) and make sure I had all that I needed to get started. I mixed, I measured, I finely ground nuts and I piped the meringue into little rounds.
I failed miserably.
My meringues did NOT come out hard on the outside and light and soft on the inside. They were flat and gooey discs that my husband informed me looked like "sequential puddles of cat yack" (this is the reason I did not post a photo of my catastrophe!) Using salted pistachios was not a good idea as my husband informed me provided "a whole lot of flavor going on in one bite" and not in a good way.
I will not give up. I can see that it will take practice and when I successfully make a batch of these dreamy confections, you bet I will post a photo documenting my triumph. In the meantime, I shall not quit my day job. But I will dream of going to Paris and buying a box of these treats from the world famous Ladurée at Champs-Élysées, and this is what they would look like ...
photo from: http://sushtopia.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/macarons-perfect.jpg 
2 comments:
looks exceptionally yummy! too bad i don't know where to get one. or maybe that is good so that we don't start another addiction?
When they are made correctly they are wonderful and well worth the addiction. There is no way, however, of becoming addicted to what I made yesterday ... yuck!
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