Au Château, La Fête des Macarons

French macarons, as you may have noticed, are newly trendy partout, eveywhere.  Even Charleston now has a shop solely dedicated to these colorful confections.  So when Nicole made some tasty and beautiful ones for a potluck party a couple of weeks ago, everyone in our French class (which swells to 15 or so in summer) began clamoring for the recipe, or even a demonstration. "You bring lunch and I’ll do a cooking lesson,” said our chef, and La Fête des Macarons was born.  PHOTO: A macaron mountain at a Lyon patisserie.

Macarons, which were made popular by the Paris pâtisserie Ladurée, are basically little round meringues made with ground almonds which are filled, like a sandwich cookie.  Their appeal is a light airy shell with a sinful, rich filling inside, crunchy and creamy in each delectable bite.  In pâtisseries you can get them in every conceivable flavor:  chocolate, coffee, lemon, raspberry, pistachio, and more.  The meringues  are often rather garishly colored to match their parfum.  The French are even experimenting with savory macarons, like duck or foie gras (I can tell you, from personal experience, that I heartily do not recommend these).

We gathered last week, with our ranks overflowing to 25 or so, for the fête.  C’est normal, chez le château, when there’s a party involved.  The summer kitchen was a flurry of activity as we spent the morning whisking and piping.  After the tiny coins of egg whites went into the oven to puff, we readied our three fillings.  Fresh berries were plucked right from the garden to make a raspberry jam; we stirred up a fresh lemon curd; and  we made a very French chocolate ganache.

Then, of course there was lunch.  And wine, and cheese, bien sûr.  For dessert, les macarons made their debut.  PHOTO:  Nicole whips up the meringues.

So how were they?  Well, let’s just call them macaroons by committee.  Everyone took their turn practicing the piping, with mixed results, and they did not quite resemble Nicole’s picture perfect ones.  But do not be deceived; they were delicious, and I regret to tell you there are none left for you.

But don’t despair!  Nicole shares her recipe below.  May they inspire an equally lovely fête chez vous.

It takes a village:  Ali , Marjo, and Narissa practice their piping, Dee and Maria have the raspberry filling at the ready.

RECIPE:  French Macarons à la Nicole

These take a while, as you have to let the fillings chill before filling the cookies, unless using prepared jam. PHOTOS: lemon macarons from our cooking lesson, and my later attempt at chocolate and rasberry.

Meringue ingredients:

•  3 medium egg whites
• 1 cup (125 gr) confectioner’s sugar
• 1  1/3 cup (125 gr) almond flour
• scant ¼ cup super-fine sugar (45 gr)

• 2 tablespoons (20 gr) unsweetened cocoa powder, to add if making chocolate meringues

• One recipe chocolate ganache, lemon filling, or jam, below

Separate eggs and set aside to warm to room temperature (save yolks for another use).   Preheat oven to 125 F(50C).

Mix confectioner’s sugar with almond flour.  Run it through the food processor for 15 seconds, or sift it multiple times. Spread it out on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake it for 15 minutes (this dries it out).  Set aside to cool.

 Whip the egg whites to soft peaks.  Add  super-fine sugar.  Sift ⅓ of the almond mixture, over whites, mixing gently until completely combined.  Repeat twice.

At this point you can fold in flavorings (extracts), food coloring, or the cocoa, for double chocolate macarons.  The double chocolate ones are seriously delicious.

Put the mixture in a pastry bag with ½” plain round tip (or fill a plastic bag, then cut off tip).  Line cooke sheet with parchment paper.  Squeeze the mixtures into little mounds, 1” apart,  Don’t go in circles, keep your tip still as your squeeze.  Drag tip to side of mound so you won’t have a peak. 

Heat oven to 300 F (150C).

Let the meringues sit about 15 minutes. Bake, in batches one cookie sheet at a time, from 12 to 15 minutes, rotating once mid-cycle.  They should not brown.  Cool 2 minutes, remove to wire rack, then cool and fill.

FILLINGS:

Chocolate Ganache:

Melt  5 oz (142 gr) of semi-sweet baking chocolate and mix with  1/2 cup (12cl) heavy cream or liquid creme fraiche.  Whisk until smooth.  If you are French you will whisk in 1 tablespoon (15 mg) of butter for extra richness, but you can also leave this out.  Let mixture sit in fridge a bit until it firms up to a spreadable consistency.  

Lemon

Let one sheet of gelatin dissolve in cold water for 5 minutes . Mix the zest and juice of one large lemon with a scant ½ cup (113gr) sugar,  2 tablesppons (25gr) butter and 1 large egg sur fec moyen?  Cook, stirring, over medium heat until it starts to get sticky, 5 minutes or less. Remove from heat.  Remove gelatin from the water, discard water, and stir gelatin into the mixture.  Allow it to chill a couple of hours, to set.

Jam

 Use any good quality jam that you like, or make your own from the garden.

In the COMMENTS: DO NOT MISS what our creative fellow dieters have to say!  Hampton gets the most amusing diet award, for creme brulée on alternate mondays, combined with serious naps. Linda shares a recipe for low carb pancakes, Debbie's making yummie yellow watermelon smoothies. M has a great quote from the late great Nora Ephron.  Suzanne has lost 15 pounds on a diet that includes wine and chocolate, and Kiki is on the chicken salad with rosé diet. And Heather has learned about French 'smoosi's'!

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