Macaroon Mishaps

Look at that photo. Just feast your eyes on the beauty of it...

A chocolate macaroon.  A perfect cookie, paired with another perfect cookie, sandwiching together some beautiful cream icing for the ultimate sweet treat.  Does life get better than a macaroon sandwich?

On Sunday I decided to spend a football-free day off trying to perfect my macaroon recipe.  If you've never made these before, they're easy enough, when it comes to ingredients.  Almonds, powdered sugar, cocoa, egg whites, and a hint of sugar.  But these are ridiculously time consuming to make, and will dirty every dish in your kitchen.  For most of you non-bakers, you also probably don't have some of the supplies required for the perfect macaroon.

I had all the supplies, though, and all of the ingredients, minus the almonds (and holy cow, the evil galactic empire that is Giant Eagle ACTUALLY HAD ALMONDS ON SALE!!!!!!  But I digress).  A quick trip to the store fixed that.  I thought, hey, this is a good recipe to learn in the process of opening a bakery, I'm going to spend the day and learn how to make macaroons.

These were my macaroons.  Hmmm....a little different from those little drops of heaven above.  Well, to be fair, these taste delicious.  They melt in your mouth like meringues  have this sweet nutty taste from the almonds, and the chocolate creme icing in the middle is to die for.  As for the appearance, well...that could use some work.

I think a lot of people would be utterly frustrated if this was their end result.  Maybe I should be a little too.  Maybe I was a little when I saw the volcano of chocolate-covered dishes that were sitting in my sink waiting for me.  But let's be honest, this is a learning experience for me.  You have no idea how many cookies, cakes, cupcakes, icings, and fillings I've messed up in the past year.  Lots.  They talk about us "Going Green"  constantly on television commercials: obviously they do not see my dumpster full of baking catastrophe garbage bags.  It's a learning process, especially for someone who is a self-taught baker.

I'll learn, though, and next time make an even better macaroon.  Soon I'll be making perfect macaroons, worthy of photographs from professionals, and their own blog post.  I was going to make some more tonight, but I'll let you in on a little secret: I still have a few dishes from yesterday to finish.  You'll learn very quickly that I hate dishes with an absolute passion.

So remember this post when I'm richer than Betty Crocker ;-)  There was a moment in time when I could not create macaroons any better than the next Holly Housewife!

Hope the rest of your week is great!!  If you need a sweet pick-me-up, let me know how I can help.

Lis