I made macarons!!!

Exclamation marks (all three of them) absolutely essential. Really. After a first, completely botched attempt to make macarons, which resulted in unremovable stains on my brand-new silpat and a few rock hard blackened heaps of something undescribeable, I shelved the idea of making macarons indefinitely. Or at least until we get around to renovating our kitchen and installing a new stove. But it just so happened I had two leftover egg whites in the fridge and in a moment of madness I thought, what the heck, let’s give it another go.

Michel Roux Jr provided me with his faultless recipe – not personally, sadly, but his Le Gavroche Cookbook did – for chocolate macarons. I sieved the icing sugar, cocoa powder and ground almonds twice, just to make sure, before adding it to the whipped egg whites. Getting the macaron mixture into a plastic bag (with a corner cut off) was a whole undertaking in itself; S had to come and help me and we could have done with a third set of hands, but between us we managed in the end. I lowered the recommended oven temperature substantially and halved the cooking time – not because I don’t trust Monsieur Roux’s instructions, oh no, but because I’m beginning to get the hang of dealing with my oven – and [insert drumroll here] they came out ok. Not great, or award-winning, most of them not even round, and the ones that were in the back of the oven started to go a bit dark already, but ok nonetheless.

Now, I have to confess I’m not a big macaron fan (I may have to go in hiding now – who knows what Robyn will do to me when she tracks me down). The ones I have had so far were invariable cloyingly sweet, with no other taste except for their sweetness. One tiny bite and I can feel a sugar coma coming on. But then I’ve never had a Ladurée or Pierre Hermé macaron, so who knows what I’ve been missing out on all my life. My chocolate macarons were still a bit sweeter than I would have liked, but not too much, and I could still taste the cocoa in them. I sandwiched a few with crème de marrons, which I’m not a big fan of, but it had exactly the right consistency and thus made for a nice photograph (yes, I am that shallow sometimes). For all the other ones I used pure, unsweetened, extremely hazelnutty, hazelnut paste, which was a bit runny, even after a good half hour in the fridge, but it balanced out the sweetness of the macaron wonderfully. The perfect combination for me. Now that I know it can be done (sort of), I will definitely try making macarons again. And while I'm at it, bring on soufflé!