Yesterday I attended a much anticipated Macaroon course at Cakes 4 Fun in Putney. It was a great day of Macaroon madness! When we arrived we watched a demonstration of how to make the macaroons using the Italian method, before setting to work on 3 batches of our own. By lunchtime we were surrounded by trays and trays of macaroons, raspberry, lemon and chocolate. On top of that our lovely tutor made us pistachio, as well as some cinnamon flavoured macaroons. Before they went in the oven we were able to add some decorations to our pink macaroons, including little coloured balls (dragees), pink sugar and royal icing flowers.
In addition, we then made some Swiss meringue buttercream to which we added a variety of flavours. At the end of the day we all ended up with:
- Lemon macaroons with lemon curd buttercream
- Chocolate macaroons with ganache
- Raspberry macaroons with raspberry jam buttercream (white chocolate ganache also goes well!)
- Cinnamon macaroons with buttercream
- Pistachio macaroons with pistachio paste buttercream
If you consider that a single macaroon at that well-known French macaroon patisserie costs £1.40…then all of a sudden this course seems like extremely good value. We left at the end of the day with around 50 macaroons… which would cost you about £70 if you bought them in a shop… and they were just as delicious but with the added satisfaction of being homemade!
So what were the top tips from the day?
- Use the Italian method rather than the French method
- Don't bother to draw out circles to pipe your macaroons
- Leave your macaroons to rest for at least 30 minutes once piped before putting in the oven - until they go dull and form a skin
So what did I do with all my macaroons? Well I popped a few in these fab Christmassy gift bags and gave them out with my Christmas cards today, along with yesterday's biscotti! Although, I may have also sampled one or two myself!! ;-)
I would thoroughly recommend this course if you have a penchant for Macaroons…although, I already have a little bit of a Macaroon addiction and I’m sure being able to make them at home can only make it worse!