Macarons

I'll admit that when I saw that the macaron had become the new hot trend in baking (I even heard it referred to as "the next cupcake"), I was rather bummed. Not because I don't care for them...oh, no no no no no, couldn't be further from the truth...but because I myself had only just discovered them during our girl trip to Paris in 2009, and I had filed the experience under that wonderful category in my brain labeled "one of a kind fantastic experience only had while discovering a new place, never to be experienced again, unless I make it back there...but, *sigh*, we'll always have Paris..."

So, as I said, I was a little bummed when I saw every blogger and etsy seller and their grandmothers and their dogs making them like they were chocolate chip cookies.

But then I thought, what the hell...if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

So here you go...Raspberry Macarons and Vanilla Maple Macarons:

The raspberry macarons are filled with a raspberry mascarpone cream, while the vanilla maple macarons are filled with maple cream. Delicious!

Some time ago, I had come across a very detailed step-by-step guide to making macarons on a fantastic food blog called Food Nouveau and saved the link. Thank God that blogger is infatuated enough with the delicate little treats to write such an exhaustive instructional post...because they are a little tricky. I was most worried about deflating the egg whites (which was not a problem) and under/over cooking them, which turned out to be a legitimate concern. (I had to lower my oven temp to 260F after the first set of cookies suffered cracked tops.)

But as you can see, they did come out rather nicely, and I'm really happy about adding macarons to my repertoire, trendy or not. (And I'm even happier about getting to eat them!;)