French Macarons!

I first heard of French Macaron cookies from watching "The Best Thing I Ever Ate." Wolfgang Puck declared them his favorite dessert ever. He described them as tiny, delicate, melt-in-your-mouth almond cookies with a dazzling array of fillings. Combined with the pictures shown on the show, I was intrigued.

I found out from reading online that macarons are incredibly difficult to make, and actually have the reputation of being one of the world's most difficult baked good to make (leave it to the French!). I also learned that in Utah, you can only find them with regularity from the French bakery at the Grand America hotel downtown. 

After a while, I came across a recipe for them from my favorite recipe source, America's Test Kitchen. I made the recipe, but instead of lining my cookie sheet with parchment as called for, I simply sprayed with pam.  The cookies spread into flat, chewy pucks! Definitely not tiny, delicate, or melt-in-your-mouth. The French buttercream I filled them with turned out awesome, though, and the flavor of the cookies was great, so I definitely wanted to try again. 

My chance came at Christmas. Armed with parchment paper this time (which the cookies can cling to and therefore don't spread, but puff up like they're supposed to), I set about making macarons and also chocolate and vanilla sable cookies for neighbor gifts. 

They came out much better, but I overbaked them a bit, so they were a bit more chewy than they should be.  

I tried again at my mom's house, and at last achieved macaron perfection!

My mom was getting remarried in May, and I got an idea to make macarons for the wedding, as favors. Her colors were black, white, and red, so I decided to make three kinds: chocolate, vanilla, and raspberry! They came out delicious, and were a great success!

My next idea was for a very trendy flavor right now: salted caramel macarons!  I made the traditional vanilla shells, and then caramel French buttercream.  Then, I baked the shells with a pinch of sea salt on top!