Fun, Exhaustion, Tears, Sore disappointment, Determination, Persistence, Success - All from macarons!
Covent Garden, London, 2012
An excited, young (at the time) girl sat with friends outside a cute patisserie with a grand, reputable name: Ladurée. As we chatted away, our order arrived at the table. Some hot drinks, and a couple of brightly coloured macarons.
The macarons were beautiful to look at. Those days, the great macaron baking craze was still in inception, and I had only vaguely heard of them, and had never tasted them. Shalini had talked of them and described how yummy they were, but we hadn't had them in Nairobi - I don't think anyone baked them commercially at the time.
The macaron shells at Ladurée were bright and the various fillings looked smooth and shiny. The famous macaron feet (macaron taxanomy) were perfectly formed, and delightfully honey-combed. I picked one delicately and bit into it - Pistachio. The next one I bit into spoke of raspberry and lemon. And then there was chocolate. It was official, I was in love. Who wouldn't be?!
My House, Nairobi, the following years
My second taste of macarons came a while later when Shalini bought some from
Pierre Hermé in Dubai. It was impossible after that to sit back and not try to make these.
We decided to look up a few recipes... after reading a few deceptively simple ones, I decided it was time to forge ahead and work with those egg whites, and sugar. I watched a video on you tube and gathered up the ingredients - almond powder, and icing sugar, castor sugar, and egg white. I plunged on. What came out was a bloody disaster; I should say a icky, gooey mess. The next 100 or so trials also resulted in similar outcomes.
But I refused to budge, we had macaron baking sessions in the house at least once a week. And then I landed on a recipe that was not only great, it was also very clear about the tricky nature of macaron baking. We finally had a passable batch of macarons. And then they got better, and better, and better, until finally I had a tray of macarons that looked like they should, and tasted as they should - good colour, nicely formed feet, soft and chewy when we bit into them. From here on, the possibilities were endless - colours, decorations, shapes, flavours - to date we continue to experiment with these, making one little bold step at every bake.
But there is nothing as humbling as making macarons - I just never know when they might flop. One thing is for sure, I avoid making them when it is humid: The disappointment of a bad batch is heart wrenching, but the delight of a perfect set is satiating beyond compare....
Maybe macaron? (The early disasters)
Macaron V1: an improvement
The real macarons: colour, flavour, design
The next level: Themed macarons
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