La Vie en Rose

I baked a good baked good this week.

Wasn't that sentence very Pushing Daisies?

Anyway, in France, they have these little cookies called macarons. They are deliciousness encapsulated in happiness and joy.

I am going to Utah tomorrow and throwing my sister a bridal shower. We decided we wanted to do kind of a pink theme with the food, as her colors are pink and black (which is kind of weird since my sister doesn't like pink... but whatever.)

Searching the web for recipe ideas I came across a tutorial for how to make French macarons from Tartlette. Since the woman that writes that blog is French I decided she could be trusted. So, my reaction to seeing a macaron recipe, a legitimate French macaron recipe was this: " I MUST MAKE THESE!!!"

I didn't want my sister's shower to be the first time, because as she warns, macarons can be a finicky creature. I needed to make sure I could at least make something edible before her party.

On Saturday I separated my egg whites, and on Tuesday I set to work making my first ever batch of macarons.

I was following the recipe for Raspberry macarons I found on her blog here. However, I had to make a few changes. I could not find mascarpone at Wal-Mart, which did not surprise me. So I bought heavy whipping cream for the filling instead. Also, they were out of raspberry preserves, so I bought strawberry. Finally, there was no powdered food coloring, so I had to use the drops, but I think that all of that still worked out okay. Except next time I'd like to have mascarpone. The cream was good, but whipped cream tends to get a little runny when warm.

Watching the cookies bake in the oven and seeing them get the little feet that they have made me so excited. Like the recipe was working, and like I was being transported back to Paris.

 My final result with the filling in the middle. Another thing that would have been nice to have is a food processor, because my crappy little blender could not grind up the almonds as finely as I would  have liked.

They turned out fairly delicious for my first time, I was pretty pleased. Not quite like some of the truly delicious ones I had in France, but at least better than some of the mediocre ones. I took a few to class to share with a girl that also spent last semester over there, and she also declared them good.

So I'm making them on Saturday for the shower. Dearest macarons, je t 'adore.