Macarons...hohn, hohn, hohn

Describing a macaron is an art form. The flaky/soft cookie, the hard and creamy filling. But here's the thing. It's not just a cookie, with any sort of filling, it's a . . . masterpiece in itself. Now, if you have not had a macaron, let me say that you are missing out.

Macarons are very delicately prepared through a long, many step process. I think that they are worth the wait though. The batter/dough could be thought of as frosting and is piped out onto a sheet and laid out for a while before being baked. This allows the cookie to puff up, but not explode, and stay intact in the oven.

 

Left: The vanilla macaron batter (dyed purple) - thick and textured like lava.

Middle: An action shot, piping the macaron batter onto a baking sheet.

Right: Letting the cookies (still in lava-like batter form) sit for a while.

These are not to be confused with macaroons, which can be related to, but are not entirely the same as, French macarons. Macaroons first originated in Italy and were similar to amaretti - Italian cookies. Some Italian monks of the 16th century came to France with the recipes for these cookies and shared them with Catherine de Medici's and King Henri II's pastry chefs. The recipes were then stolen from the Italians and in the early 20th century a chef named Pierre Desfontaines created the macaron, by putting two of the cookies together with either buttercream, jam, or ganache. He did this because the word macaron comes from the Italian word maccarone which means "paste" in Italian, so he wanted to 'paste' the cookies together to make something even better!

Many people think that you spell these cookies "macaroons" and say the word with an "ooooon" sound at the end, but they are wrong!  The French do not put two "O"s and they don't say it like that. As stated above, there is a difference between a macaron, and a macaroon. The actual spelling has been mentioned above and it is said "mac-ah-ronhg". The "hg" at the end hints that you don't actually form the "n" sound at the end of the word; it just kind of dies in your throat. I could go into an entire post about French pronunciation, but I will save it for later.

That is all I can describe up to this point because sadly, I do not have the skill of telling you exactly how it tastes. Not only are there so many flavors, but the textures are so unique! So, here I am, inviting you to go out and try a macaron for yourself. Enjoy!

-Colette