Macarons have never quite reached cupcake levels of fame and popularity. They are the baking world's P.J. Harvey - shrouded in gilded obscurity and complexity; whilst the cupcakes/Kylie are off pleasing the masses with their naughty sweetness.
You can't pick up a macaron at the corner shop. You can't get them from the chiller cabinet at the supermarket. You can't buy a "just add egg" instant mix to make macarons in 30 minutes.
Good macarons are tricky - tricky to track down and tricky to make. Unless, of course, you live in Paris, where you can pop to your local McCafé to pick up your very own McMacaron. I kid you not.
Such a discovery will undoubtedly shock and dismay many macaron aficionados. How dare the grubby hands of globalisation and mass consumption touch these sacred and elegant morsels?
Macarons are meant to come from grand patisseries. Buying them should transport you to a world not dissimilar to that of Marie Antoinette as seen through the eyes of Sofia Coppola. All miniature pugs, powdered wigs and overflowing champagne saucers. Macarons are unashamedly feminine, delicate and decadent. Their pastel shades and smooth, domed shape are feats of aesthetic delight. One alone is enough to inspire a swoon, en masse they can transport the beholder to a world of fluffy clouds and rose petals.
The history of this almond and meringue biscuit begins in Renaissance Italy, more specifically in Venice. French cookery encyclopedia, Larousse Gastronomique states: “the name is derived from the Italian maccheron and the Venetian macarone (meaning fine paste), from which macaroni is also derived.”
Despite their Italian origins, it is the French who have made the macaron their own. The country abounds with local legends about the tiny biscuit. The town of Cormery claims to be the true home of the macaron. According to folklore, the town’s monks began making them in 781AD. They made them according to a “divine recipe” and shaped them to resemble a monk’s navel.
The renowned macarons of Montmorillon are shaped like crowns and served attached to their baking parchment. Macarons became hugely popular in the eastern city of Nancy during the 17th century when the city’s devout Carmelite nuns began to manufacture them. The nuns were vegetarians who upheld Theresa of Avila’s principle that “almonds are good for girls who do not eat meat.”
Yet these regional variants of macaron look nothing like the dainty Parisian macaron found in Ladurée or Pierre Hermé today. They are rustic with irregular shapes and cracked surfaces. They are a pale, sandy colour and served singularly, as opposed to sandwiched together.
Parisian macarons are glossy, smooth and perfectly round. They can be dyed a range of colours, typically corresponding to the flavour. A true macaron is characterised by the pied – a rough ridge around the base of the macaron shell.
Pierre Desfontaines, the second cousin of Louis Ernest Ladurée, developed the Parisian macaron in 1930. He joined together two macaron shells with a smooth ganache filling. They were served to the elegant ladies who visited Ladurée’s tea salon.
Ladurée continue to be globally renowned for their macaron, with new flavours added on a seasonal basis. Fauchon and the relative newcomer Pierre Hermé have joined them as suppliers of high-end macarons.
Making macarons is notoriously complicated. Japanese pastry chef Hisako Ogita gives 22 individual stages for making and baking the batter alone. There is an entire lexicon devoted to the art of macaron making – macaronnage is the process of combining the almond flour with the meringue, this is followed by the macaronner which entails mixing the batter until stiff.
The batter is piped onto baking sheets in perfect rounds of approximately 2.5-centimetre diameter. These circles of batter are then left to dry out and form a skin before being baked for 15 minutes.
Lots can go wrong – the surface can crack and blister or become mottled with oily marks. They can become dull and dry or, quelle beast, the pied can fail to form.
Attempting to make macaron is not for the feint hearted. Nigella offers a more straightforward recipe. But the end results, whilst tasty, fail to mask the multiple cut corners.
For the sake of sanity, it is perhaps best leaving the macaron making to the experts. Macarons are mysterious, complicated and utterly addictive. If only this habit wasn’t such an expensive one...
Image via Julien Haler’s flickr