Between living in Austin and being a part of the food blogging world, a day without seeing a macaron just doesn’t happen. And even though I think they’re completely adorable, I’m always the first to admit that I don’t love them. In fact, I don’t love them at all.
But I do love a good challenge and I’ve heard these delicate bites are among the more challenging ventures a baker could take on in their own kitchen. I looked up Jenna’s recipe from way back in the Project Food Blog day and decided to see how difficult a macaron could be.
Thankfully, I read the recipe in its entirety before starting so I knew to make the ganache first in order to allow plenty of time for cooling. Naturally, I looked in my fridge hours later and realized I had totally forgotten to add the cream. Other than these teeny tiny mishaps and my inability to gracefully use a pastry bag, everything turned out pretty well in the end.
As far as aesthetics go, I could use a ton of practice with a pastry bag. Like a whole day’s worth. Stuff was spilling and merging together and oozing into my hands. It was a total mess. Such a mess that I couldn’t even begin to worry about uniformity sized pastries. Or the cracking… Perhaps I needed to keep a closer eye on them around the 10 minute mark. Next time?
I wouldn’t have thought there would be a next time, you know, cause I’m not the biggest fan of macarons. However, I liked the texture of the macarons that came from Jenna’s recipe wayyy better than any restaurant version I’ve had. And since some solid QT with a pastry bag is beyond necessary, it looks like there will be plenty of next times.
Making macarons is on my to-do list. I don’t think I’ve ever had a macaron that I didn’t like!
When I tried, mine looked shockingly similar. But, you at least had a couple that turned out to be pretty. These have been my favorite for many, many years… I’m so excited that they have finally exploded onto the scene here:)
I when they were too large they cracked. I need to get better with that darn pastry bag!