Thursday 23 April 2009

Homemade Chocolate Macaroons

We've been making miniature macaroons for what seems like years and happily have the option of popping out and simply purchasing from Ladurée if ever we want the real thing. However, we did want to try to make some ourselves...

After being motivated by the reading of dozens of recipes (of which no two were ever the same!) then being put off by dozens of horror stories recounting failed attempts at making macaroons at home, we at last decided on a flavour - chocolate! So far so good...

Armed with a recipe and a mental list of dos and don'ts, we set to work. First "do" - use old egg whites, some say the older the better...3 days, 5 days, a week. At this rate we'd never get started!

Fortunately, we'd recently started making ice cream at home for which egg yolks only are needed, so having kept the whites and with this twist of culinary fate on our side, we were back on track.

We'll not go into the details of how we made them here...there are other blogs and sites if that's what you're after, but with much anguish on the part of Emma and dribbling anticipation on Neil's part, the moment came when we had what looked like real macaroons ready to come out of the oven! And these are some from that batch...

Homemade Chocolate Macaroons

So did the taste live up to the visuals? Well, you'll have to take our word that with their delicately crispy shell, soft moist interior and rich chocolate ganache, we'll be making some more very, very soon.

Unless we find ourselves in front of Ladurée again...

2 comments:

  1. The do look tasty! I recently had the pleasure of trying a Laduree framboise macaron and it was fantastic. But the Paul chocolate macarons are fantastic too. Love your minis and will keep tuned in to your blog!

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  2. The homemade macaroons were delicious and we're happy to hear you were able to make the comparison between Paul and Ladurée! It's nice and easy to do that on the Champs Elysées - you simply need to cross the street! By the way, did you know that since 1992 Ladurée belongs to the same group that has owned Paul since the 1950s. If you're interested, you can find more history here.

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