Woman vs. Macarons

I don't know if you know this about me, but I make a bomb-ass macaron.

Sorry for the slight profanity, but there's really no other way to describe how awesome they are. I tried a whole bunch of other adjectives before "bomb-ass," and none of them really captured the true bomb-assery of those little almond meringue cookies. Thus: I make a bomb-ass macaron.

Or maybe I should say that I made a bomb-ass macaron, because given today's events, I may have to find something else on which to stake my reputation, like crocheting a bomb-ass scarf (maybe someday, after I learn to crochet) or doing a bomb-ass job of parallel parking (maybe never, after hell freezes over).

But let's back up a minute. I started my macaron-making victory streak in July, when I decided to attempt them for the Bastille Day dinner I was throwing. (Yes, I celebrate Bastille Day. Yes, I actually make an entire French-themed dinner for various friends and family members. To say I miss Lyon is a bit of an understatement.) Anyway, I went into this endeavor with a healthy dose of realistic skepticism regarding my abilities in this arena, since macarons are notoriously difficult to make. Even my certified pastry chef sister's reaction was something along the lines of, "Oh, you're making macarons? Well...um, good luck!"

But make macarons I did. I made them while watching the first hour of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One, no less. And then I ate about 25% of them while watching the second hour of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One, which made for a rather stomachache-y experience once I was into the third hour of the entire ordeal. But the point is, those macarons were good. For a first run, they were even great. Crisp and delicate on the outside, sweet and chewy on the inside. The buttercream frosting was a perfect complement to the cookie. They were a huge hit at dinner and there were none left by the end of the night. All in all, my first foray into macaron-making had been a great success.

I decided to make them again for my grad party at the end of the month, this time adding a pistachio-flavored version to my repertoire. (I was going for a Dartmouth green-and-white color scheme.) Granted, I did not budget my time wisely and ended up having to let the uncooked circles of batter sit for six hours instead of 30 minutes while I went to Market Basket and endured what I'm sure was a thrilling night of overstock, but even this decidedly half-assed attempt at cookie making came off better than it had any right to. The pistachio macarons were a little too chewy and the tops weren't crunchy enough, but it was a relatively minor issue and I still had the almond macarons--aka the ringers--to make up for it. Once again, they were a big hit.

So I guess I got cocky. I started thinking I was some kind of pastry prodigy. Professional chefs bemoan what a pain in the butt macarons are but there I was, knocking off batch after successful batch like they were break-and-bakes. I could do no wrong!

Working directly off that premise, I bought a macaron cookbook I found in the bargain bin at Barnes and Noble and immediately flipped past the basic recipes to the "Fancy Flavors" section, where I promptly settled on chocolate-mint macarons. This wasn't solely the product of cockiness; it also happened to be the only recipe I had all the ingredients for (except for plain almond and pistachio, but hey, been there, done that). So off I went.

The procedure for making macarons is pretty tedious and complicated and involves a lot of sifting, whipping, folding, dough-punching (actually), rapping of cookie sheets on countertops, and so on, so I won't bore you with the details. I'll jump straight ahead to when I pulled my peppermint cookies out of the oven only to find that a.) the top rack was burnt and b.) the bottom rack had transformed from cute little green-colored cookies into a series of amorphous blobs, giving the impression that my entire baking project had begun to hulk out and had been killed in the process.

I threw away the entire top rack without even bothering to take them off the parchment paper, which broke my heart because, unlike the bottom rack, they were perfectly round and lovely. They were also a deep brown, though--pretty hard to argue with that. I cursed the cookbook in the most colorful language I could dredge up and accused it of everything from getting the ingredient proportions wrong to setting the oven temp too high.

In a flash of brilliance, I decided to go back to the macaron recipe that had given me such success from the get-go. All I had to do was sub in peppermint oil for vanilla extract! Way to go, me! Problem solver extraordinaire!

Except the second batch was almost as disappointing as the first. When I piped it onto the cookie sheet, it was runny and it expanded like it was some sort of evil goo bent on world domination. I piped the second half of the batter directly into the garbage can and immediately proceeded to throw a giant temper tantrum in which I enumerated not only everything that had gone wrong with my cookies, but everything that had gone wrong in my entire day. The one bright spot in the madness, my mother and I agreed, was that my hair still looked really nice, which is an unfortunately uncommon occurrence in my life. So there was that.

I would love to make this longwinded story a fable about persistence and tell you that I made a third batch and that it came out perfectly, but that would a lie, because all I did after my second failed attempt at cookie making was eat the sub-par cookies I could salvage from the whole mess. Then I threw the shattered remnants outside "for any animals that enjoy gourmet cookies" and wrote a blog entry bitching about it.

I suppose the next time I make macarons I will be sticking to the tried-and-true recipe that has brought me such success in the past. And until then, I suppose I can console myself with the fact that I still make bomb-ass homemade ravioli...at least, until the universe tries to take that away from me, too.

But be warned, universe: I ain't going down without a fight. And you really don't want a crazy (albeit perfectly coiffed), underemployed college graduate coming after you. I've got a lot of post-adolescent angst and I'm looking for an outlet.

So are you feelin' lucky?

Are ya?