5 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Macarons

Posted by Lisa in Featured, History & Culture | 2 comments

I’ve been dying to make macaroons for a while now. This desire all started when in my website work for Strudels, I came across pictures of their delicious macaroons. And I thought to myself, “How hard can that be?” (Note: This is pretty much how all my cooking disasters start, but I never learn).

Enthusiastically, I start looking for recipes online and picked the recipe from UK’s Delicious Magazine because I thought it looked the simplest. Alright, I’ll admit, the colours had me line, hook and sinker.

How did my macarons turn out? It was an epic failure. Like, seriously, epic.

The only cookie failure more epic than this was when my friends and I (at age 14) decided to double the oven temperature in hopes that the cookies we were baking would be ready in half the time (which for 14-year-olds, the math makes perfect sense). This resulted in a cracked oven glass door thanks to my genius reaction of pouring cold water onto the hot oven in an attempt to put out our flaming cookies. I have since learned my lesson to follow cookie recipes very closely. And my cookies have normally turned out very well. Until now.

My macaron batter turned out to be too runny, and the cookies were consequently out of shape. The worse part was they wouldn’t come off the baking paper. That Flickr picture I used above is just to console myself. While my mother, who unbelievably still allows me to be in her kitchen, started harping, “I told you macarons were hard to make”, I went deep into the Google Grapevine to learn what I did wrong (because I swear, I followed that recipe to the T).

What I learned were some facts and history on macarons that simply fascinate me. Not all of them will help improve my macaron baking skills, but it has opened me up to a whole new world of macarons and its mysterious allure.

 

#1: Macarons Have Feet

In the same way a penguin has feet, macarons have feet too.

Getting a good foot is a very important factor of what defines a good macaron. Now there are many theories, tips and tricks on how to get a good foot, but I love the simplicity, tough love and down-to-earth advise of Bravetart in his Macaron Mythbuster post. His theory in getting a good foot lies in allowing the macarons to spread first by letting it sit out for about 15 minutes before going in the oven. Then, in the oven, it will rise without simultaneously spreading, thus giving it a good foot. Makes sense to me.

 

#2: Macarons vs. Macaroons

Yes, there is a difference, and no, it’s not British vs. American spelling. While both are meringue-like cookies with the basic ingredients of egg whites and sugar, the macarOns are ‘em cute colourful sandwiched cookies which have graced the covers of many food magazines, while the macarOOns is more like a small, sweet cake. Macarons use almond flour and famously originate from Paris, whilst macaroons use coconut and hail from America.

Since there’s a lot of confusion with the spelling, you’ll find most people just say French Macaroons to refer to the pretty colourful sandwiched ones because these macarons are French. Well, that’s debatable.

 

#3: French vs. Italian (vs. Swiss??)

You almost expect the Germans to part of this somehow, don’t you? Axis and Allies aside, it seems like the French Macaron has occupied more publicity even though the macaron was born in Italy.

When the Italian noblewoman Catherine de’ Medici married King Henry II of France, she brought along her chef who introduced the macaron to France in 1533, or so the story goes. The macarons began as simple cookies. It was only in the 20th century did the macaron become a sandwich when Pierre Desfontaines, grandson to the founder of Parisian luxury cakes and pastries brand Ladurée, had the idea of sticking two pieces together with a chocolate panache filling in the middle.

Today, the basic difference between the French and Italian counterparts lies in the method of baking. The Italian method is more tedious and requires fine handling although fool-proof, while the French method is simpler but touted as harder to master because it throws more tantrums. Reputedly sort of like their men.

As for the Swiss macaroons? Honestly, I can’t tell the difference. The only thing that seems to make these macarons Swiss is the fact that you can buy them from the landmark Lindt and Sprüngli chocolate factory in Zurich. The locals call these cookies luxemburgerli.

 

#4: The Maca-wrongs

You know you’re not the only macaron failure in the world when an entire terminology for macaron failure has been invented in the English lingo. Behold, the Maca-wrongs! Feel free to join the club, anytime

I found some great troubleshooting guides for Maca-wrongs, and one of my favourites is the one from Not So Humble Pie. Based on this, it seems like my mistake was over-mixing or breaking the meringue which made my macaron batter too thin. I was most intrigued however to find that amidst a long list of Maca-wrongs, one of the problems that Not So Humble Pie listed was “My macarons chirp like a bird”. I can’t wait for my macarons to chirp.

 

#5: A Macaron’s Relationship to the Macaroni

Cue Yankee Doodle. Macaron and macaroni both originate from the same word to bear the meaning “fine dough”, or more specifically it comes from maccheroni, the plural of maccherone, meaning “squashed”.

Now you have another “Did You Know” fact that you can throw out at your next macaron party. Spiffy.