During our visit to Paris in April, I took some time to get a little instruction on macarons at Le Cordon Bleu. They are the fancy French cousin to the American sandwich cookie. The cookie part is just almond flour, powdered sugar, Italian meringue, egg whites, and a little food coloring that gives a fun indication of the filling. It is the filling that hosts the variety of flavors and not the shells.
They can be found filled with ganache, buttercream, jams, or jellies. The sky is your limit. I give you the basic recipe for the macaron “shell”, or “cookie” as well as a base ganache recipe that you can add any flavor. For example, with a green-shaded macaron, I use pistachio butter, for a red shade I’ll use lingonberry jam.
As a toast to Pride Month, I made a full rainbow of macarons. Here is what I came up with:
Because this is baking so you’re going to want a scale. I am giving measurements in some new-fangled units of mass and volume found in the ye olde metric system.
Note that a milliliter of water (volume) is equal to a gram of water (weight) so if you don’t have a graduated measuring cup with ml (Pyrex) just weigh it out.
You can use either liquid food coloring or gel. The liquid will give you a pastel hue. The gel, in a hefty amount, can get you the vibrant colors of the rainbow. Your call.
About wine, sweets are difficult to pair.
Read through the recipes, the first is for the macaron shells, the second for the ganache filling.
This makes 30 macarons. The macrons are best eaten a couple of days after assembly if you can wait that long. They will keep up to a week. These freeze nicely and will keep in the freezer for several months.