Macarons: I can’t justify buying them anymore

French cookies, pastries, candies – you name them, I want ’em. I’ve been addicted to macarons for some time now, and I’m quite positive that I’ve spent an ungodly number of euros eating through the macarons of France (and the US). [Maybe I’ll do a write-up about my favorite Parisian pastries/cookies soon…]

This past weekend, I went over to le bf’s house and decided it was finally time to try making some from scratch. I’ve been watching episodes of The Great British Bake Off on Netflix recently, and everyone was poppin out macarons for decorations. I figured I’d give it a whirl, too, since they didn’t seem as complicated as I previously thought.

Now, I am both happy and sad that I went on this baking adventure.

Happy, because they turned out scrumpteelicious with a beautifully dark chocolate ganache. Sad, because I don’t feel like I can ever justify buying macarons at 2 dollars/euros a pop any more. Not that I ever could, really, but now even more so.

Of course, our first attempt at macarons wasn’t 100% successful. We rushed and put in two trays at once (it seems one at a time would have been better). Some of our cookies cracked and overflowed. A few burned. Still, on the whole, they were the right size, color and texture. Perhaps a tad too chewy. And a bit misshapen (as you can see in the picture, lol). A bit more practice would be nice, but I am overall satisfied! Bonus points that our chocolate macarons tasted quite close to my favorite Pierre Hermé ones.

We used this recipe. Tip: Separate your egg whites properly (we got a bit of yolk in on our first try and had to redo the meringue). You might need to add extra chocolate to get your ganache to the right consistency.

If any readers have tips/recipes for making a perfect macaron, I’m all ears 🙂 I’m also curious about your favorite flavor combinations!