Macaron School

Two years ago when I was doing my Cuisine Diploma at Le Cordon Bleu, I also decided to take a three month long Pastry course. It was with my nose slightly in the air that I showed up for the first class. I had deboned teeny birds without cutting them up, I had dug out a small fish from the inside of a bigger fish - I was strong, Pastry pshaw! Piece of cake!
Hah! I was quickly put in my place when I was told to dip my finger in boiling sugar to test the degree of firmness. "Do eeet!" sneered the pastry chef teaching us. Needless to say, I didn't. I stuck to the sugar thermometer. There is a limit.
Anyway, the point of the story was that even though I trained as a chef, life in its strange twists decided that my business will not be in savory but in sweet.
I had made macarons only once in class and surprisingly was one of the few people who got it right the first time. So when I started making them for my business I thought (again!) Piece of cake!
Hah! (again!)
I've shed my share of tears when I've over mixed the batter so that soon as I pipe the mix out it spreads and spreads and spreads. I've had the oven too hot, then too cold. I've shaken my fist at dark rainy clouds, as the humidity made my macarons flat. I've read all the macaron books I could lay my hands on. And with a lot of practise I have learned a lot. Now 95% of my batch turns out perfect.
But 95% does not a good business make. So I've decided to enrol in a 2 day course at Ecole Lenotre in  Paris, end of March.
(Oh alright! It was more the thought of going away by myself to Paris and hitting all the patisseries on the way!!)
So I am dusting out my chef's tunic, cleaning up the clogs and heading out into a macaron coloured sunset....
More on that later...

Baby oh baby

Just finished making 20 macarons for a friend hosting a Christening over the weekend. I ended up making full batches, really don't know why except I felt like making lots n lots of macarons, which means I made a total of more than 80 macarons. Now that's what I call a full baking day!

I made some simple blueberry macrons filled with blue berry jam and decorated them with sugar prams and babygros. I got distracted during the macronage stage, the doorbell rang, lunch burned, usual stuff, and over folded the mixture - which meant that the first batch came out looking like blue CDs. So back I went again, grumbling and moaning, and this time paid more attention to what my hands were doing, stopping one beat short of overdoing it again.

These macarons are called English Rose, they are strawberry with a cream, jam and fresh mint filling inside. These babies are so light and summery that  I had to perch butterflies on top of them. :)

That's  Pistachio in the upper left corner. One of my favourite ice creams growing up in Pakistan was Pistachio. My uncle would drive us to this hole in the wall parlour where they would take your order while you were sitting in the car and bring tall glasses of ice cream out to you. They did a killer Pistachio ice cream, very rich and creamy,made with real Pistachios from the north. I  wanted to recreate the same flavours so I  blitzed two packets of pistachios into a fine powder before folding them into a light buttercream. I also dusted the shells with the ground pistachios as a garnish before baking the macarons.
The dark brown one in the upper right corner is deep chocolaty with a wonderfully aromatic, herby center and is one of my favourite macarons- so of course I had to call it Darcy as in Mr.Darcy. The chocolate shells are bound together by a white chocolate and basil filling. Absolutely dreamy!!
And last, but not least, in the left bottom corner is a Salted Caramel macaron all sparkly with gold leaf.

I have been trying to source macaron boxes for the last couple of months. Except for a factory in Amsterdam that does mini boxes (I assume they are made for macarons the size of coins!) there is nothing out there. Since the business is all online, the right box is crucial. If the cardboard is too thin then the macarons will break in transit, I know I tried sending some in flimsy boxes to friends, all they got were crumbs..

For the time being  I ordered some chocolate boxes and happily realized that if  I laid the macarons face up, a box could fit in 12. Add some bright tissue paper and the end result is not too shabby!

I think these boxes might even survive the postal journey. Will be mailing a couple of boxes to friends in London to test them out.  Email me if interested!