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.