I give it a go, but given I'm not lucky enough to have access to hyper-fresh eggs, it doesn't seem to make much difference to my inexperienced eye. He calls the results "liquified egg whites", explaining in his glorious book Macarons, "during that time, the egg whites lose their elasticity, the albumen breaks down and they will be much easier to whisk to soft peaks without the risk of turning 'grainy'". Claire Clark uses a pinch of cream of tartar in her recipe in Indulge, Zumbo adds 2g of powdered egg white to strengthen the foam, and Hermé ages his egg whites for a week before use. Photograph: Felicity CloakeĪs with any piece of kitchen magic, the whisking of egg whites is surrounded by much mystique, and many macaron recipes involve some trick in order to ensure the whites remain stable and billow obligingly into a pleasing meringue when requested. Leave the sugar burns to those getting paid for them. Throw the superior lightness of texture into the ring, and there's no contest: French meringue it is. Undeniably recognisable as a macaron, and proving, to my relief, that it is indeed possible to make a good one without hot syrup. Perhaps it was the extra practice (hitherto, piping hasn't been my strong point), but David Lebovitz's recipe came out near perfect. And then, thank goodness, I had an epiphany. I'm torn: juggling hot syrup (which must be added to the whisking whites at exactly 118C) and the stress of cleaning the solidified residue from my beloved KitchenAid mixer is pointing me in the direction of Claire's recipe, but the results seemed to speak for themselves. Although the results are lighter, and less intensely sweet, they also look less impressive. Mavericks of the macaron Pierre Hermé ("the Picasso of pastry", according to French Vogue) and Sydney's Adriano Zumbo come down on the side of the Italian meringue, which means adding the sugar to the egg white in hot syrup form – as the whites are being whisked.Īustralian food writer Duncan Markham, who has written an excellent, and extremely comprehensive guide to the macaron on his blog, Syrup and Tang describes the French meringue as the simpler method, but "fraught with disappointment", and indeed, trialling Claire's recipe against Zumbo and Hermé's versions, I'm inclined to agree. The first, using a French meringue, involves beating egg white and caster sugar together until stiff then folding in the dry ingredients (ground almonds, icing sugar and, in the case of chocolate macarons, generally cocoa powder), and is favoured by the famous Ladurée chain, and Claire Clark, one of the world's finest pastry chefs. OK, both are based on meringues, but still, c'est bizarre, non? Oddly, given the precision necessary in patisserie (every ingredient, including liquids, must be weighed precisely) there are two quite distinct ways of making a macaron. All right, so, as experienced macaron makers will no doubt observe, my piping could use a little work – but trust me, practice makes even more perfect. I've chosen to make chocolate macarons, on the basis that this is one of the few flavours which allows a like-for-like comparison of recipes from some of the masters of the art, but once you've nailed the basic technique, macarons are one of those things that reward a little bit of creative cookery. After all, why sweat over a hot stove in a frumpy apron when the likes of Ladurée and Pierre Hermé make better macarons than I could ever hope to for just £1.85 a pop – ah. Until last week I was, like most Parisians, of the opinion that, like the croissant, they're best left to the experts. The crisp, rainbow-bright shell that cracks at the faintest dental pressure, that soft, delicately chewy, nutty interior, to say nothing of the silky smooth ganache which sandwiches the two halves together: quite simply, they're sublime, one of the finest examples of the French patissier's art. On that basis alone, I'd like to be against macarons in the same way I'm firmly contra-cupcake – but I just can't be, because unlike said sugar-stuffed monstrosity, they're more than just a pretty face. And sadly, that's not the first word most of my friends would use to describe me. They demand patience and precision – both skills that come about as naturally to me as unicycling. While I fondly believe my Victoria sponge would have a fair chance at an averagely competitive village fete, macarons (they deserve the dignity of a fancy French name, let's face it) strike fear into my heart. Basically, anything but the impossibly pretty sort found posing in every Parisian patisserie window. I must admit that, when my editor suggested macaroons for this column, I hoped she was talking about the sweet, coconutty kind found in every high-street bakers or, at a pinch, the crisp almond biscuits of the same name from Lorraine.
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