The first time I ever tasted one of this delightful cookies (well, that I recall tasting) was this spring when one of my department's visiting scholars (from France) brought a beautiful pale green box and left it in the kitchen, sending out an e-mail that notified us all that he had brought in some Macarons from France...and to please enjoy. I made my way up to the kitchen and a colleague and I marveled at the box. We opened it up and discovered that they were not little mounds of coconut that we associate the word Macaroon with but an entirely different cookie (Macaron-note the one "o" ). We were fascinated by the beautiful colored cookies and made our way downstairs with a few to try. They were amazing and we immediately looked them up to discover what flavors we were trying. After a quick Google image search of "french macarons" we discovered that they were from Laduree. That night I began looking for recipes to attempt to replicate this distinct almond cookie. After reading a bunch of complicated recipes I decided that it would be just too much work. I found recipes that instructed to leave the oven slightly open or to change the oven temp at different points during the baking. I also noticed that almost all of the recipes' measurements were by weight--quite difficult when you don't have a kitchen scale!
Fast forward 4+ months.
I came across Doughmesstic's blog and found a less terrifying recipe. I ran over to a chain home goods store and bought a coffee grinder and a kitchen scale and then off to the store to buy slivered almonds, egg whites and various extracts (well, coconut and hazelnut). I decided to just make a basic all-almond shell with hazelnut extract and fill with Nutella (I wasn't up for making buttercream). I used Doughmesstic's recipe found here but substituted the cherry flavoring for hazelnut extract. I also used jarred egg whites (eggology). I found the recipe to be very easy to follow and quickly had the batter ready to pipe out. I wasn't too successful at piping out the circles but figured for my first shot it wasn't too bad. After letting them sit for a bit I put them in the oven, turned on the oven light and patiently watched. From all the recipes I read, the foot on the macaron was very important. As they were baking Ryan came home and arrived to me dancing around singing "they have feet..they have feet...I did something right cause they have feet!!"
They turned out great for the first attempt. The tops were a little brown and I had some difficulty removing them from the parchment but all-in-all I counted it as a success and started planning the macaron flavors I would make next. That started off the week's macaron frenzy...and I began to think "What's all the fuss about? I don't see why people say these are so finicky, they are actually really easy to make!"
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