0 Macaron Class - Chef Marthe

 I drew this portrait business card for Chef Marthe as a 'Thank you' for letting me attend her Meeting The French Class.

 Then she turned around and invited me to her macaron class the next day!

 My class mates were 4 British bridesmaids + the bride. This was their surprise gift - a trip to Paris and the macaron cooking class.

 I hope the bride(here) is happily making lots of macarons for her honey now.

 Chef Marthe demonstrates the perfect beaten eggwhite texture.

 We used the 'Italian method' for making the meringue shells, which entails heating the sugar and using the dreaded candy thermometer.

 Of course I fell madly in love with chef Marthe's adorable rooster kitchen timer but n'existe pas on Amazon thus far...

 Chef Marthe prefers Picard frozen raspberries to fresh for filling the macarons, because the berries are whole and not mushy. Who knew?

 I'm skipping around in the gazillion macaron making steps. Here the beaten eggwhites are being introduced into the colored almond flour.

 Chef Marthe has a gazillion tricks up her sleeve.

 Has the bride taken this class before? She's making perfect little round shells.

 Into the oven they go.

And out they come looking as perfect as can be with dainty little 'feet'.

 Another Marthe trick - removing the shells from the baking paper without breakage.

 Enfin...

 The tasting begins and goes on and on.

 The lucky bridal group is heading off to a night at la Moulin Rouge.

Au revoir et merci
contact Chef Marthe for a fabulous cooking class!

0 Macaron Memories

Sometimes you find treasures lurking on an old memory photo card. I found piles of Paris macarons from 2 years ago I'd completely forgotten about. It's been too long since we've looked at the not so basic Parisian macaron at PB. We've been focused on Maine lobsters, Bordeaux chateaux and this week Venetian gondolas (there are just a few left BTW till the sale ends tonight dear PBers). Two years ago I was obsessed with macarons colors...
I was madly trying to match pistachio macarons with paint - boy is that a watercolor challange! And so many shades of pistache. Who knew? I was just as obsessed with macaron boxes. Gerard Mulot is constantly redesigning his boxes - with a window, without etc. That was the trip I came home with 19 macarons boxes and got stopped at CDG customs. I was wearing my macaron T-shirt and matching bracelet. What? They thought I was a macaron terrorist?

Fauchon has different mac boxes mainly changing the cover designs. I always loved this one.

I would suggest you NOT buy a pre-packed box of macs. Gawd only knows when they were put in the box?

On the other hand these original style almond macarons are sold attached to parchment paper they were baked on. The few crumbs sticking to the paper still taste just fine.

If you can't have the real thing there is always endearing macaron detritus/stuff...

Does a tragic feeling come over you as you near the end of the last of your Parisian macarons? Proust was ahead of his time writing cookie homages. There's probably a thousand homages to macarons going up on the net at this very moment...

I have a very stale 5-month old box in the fridge surrounded by encrouching CSA veggies - not the correct company for a macaron no matter how past it's sell-by-date don't you think?

A flat of Mad MacNYC Bastille Day macs lurk in my freezer.

Nothing like a real taste of Paris.

What are your macaron memories?

Do tell all

BONJOUR MACARON MEMORIES

0 Macaron Class - La Cuisine Paris

A Toast to Macarons, 9" x 11"

Aren't we overdue for a toast to Paris macarons?
There's a NEW how-to DIY macaron cook book out -Mad About Macarons  on Tuesday. It looks 'authentic' and lovely to boot. Especially since last trip I took a how-to-make macaron class. I've yet to acquire the essential pastry accoutrements but I'm working on it. I took a 2-hour class at La Cuisine Paris in the Marais. There were 10 of us. It was all in English - HOORAY!

We got tons of practical info and lots of hands-on practice.

 How to tell when your Italien meringue is just the right consistency - a nice shinny stream.

And the right temperature and not a point more.

Good ingredients are essential.
Trader Joe's has pasturized egg whites.

Trader Joe's has almond powder.
But maybe the grind is too thick.

We all got to squeeze out the lemon macaron shells.

It was rather dramatic when they went in the oven.

And even more so when they came out!

Unfortunately some students multi-sampled the broken or slightly imperfect macarons. Unfortunately some students promised they would subtract their eaten samples from the final take-home count. Of course they FORGOT.

Some other students, who did not multi-sample were feeling quite murderous towards the samplers, ahem.

C'est la vie.

No blood was shed and the macs did taste terrifically lemony.

If you're in Paris right this minute race over to Pierre Herme and taste his special Xmas flavors before they disappear off the shelves on December 23rd. Or you could take a class at La Cuisine Paris and hope you get to bring some home.

BONJOUR La Cuisine Paris!