Adventures in Making Macarons

A few weeks ago, one of my lovely friends Stef had another adorable baby girl. Despite all of us calling her a “him” from the beginning, she was born and named Selah Rose. So to officially welcome this new babe to the world, Janna and I, along with some other very helpful friends, hosted a baby shower. I’ll share the whole post tomorrow, but today, I would like to take you through a little adventure in making macarons, with the help of Duchess Bakery. 

It seems no event is complete without some delectable macarons and Duchess does them right…they are the best in the city! But Janna and I, being the crafty people we are, wanted to try and make our own. I will preface this blog post by saying neither of us have ever tried this and we most certainly are not expert macaron bakers (though we wish!). 

I headed over to Provisions and grabbed a handy Macaron kit. After finishing this recipe, I can tell you, this kit is a must! It makes about 20 filled macarons and comes in different colours (though Janna and I added a little food colouring to ours). 

It was all about getting the egg whites perfect before adding to the other mixture! All the instructions were super clear AND they had a youtube video to help! Our pink macaron mixture is ready to pipe!! Look at that concentration! Having the template was very handy…I know for sure my macarons would have all been different sizes without it! Unfortunately, even handy templates and detailed instructions can’t stop me from squeezing everything out the top of the piping bag…rookie mistake!! (Janna just laughed and snapped photos as I panicked haha)Janna was much better at this step than I was…An important step was hitting the tray to get all the air bubbles out of our shells. Right away we noticed that our “points” at the top weren’t going down. We think our batter may have been too thick…probably from over stirring.I pretty much parked myself here for fear they would burn.A finished macaron shell cooling…the edges got a bit brown, but they still looked delicious! Again, normally they wouldn’t have such a point at the top. Whoops!

We filled with a delicious chocolate ganache, though we would have loved to try some Nutella centres too! Because we made these in advance, I froze them and took them out the morning of the shower. The “uglier” macaron shells were strategically placed on the bottom! And so, I’m sure you are all wondering…the verdict?? They were absolutely delicious!! Even though their shape was a bit off, all our guests were very impressed that Janna and I made them! Hey, I may even consider making my own for the wedding now too!! (Just need a bit more practice!)

So thank you Duchess for having such a great Macaron kit and for filling all our tummies with deliciousness. Check back tomorrow for all the baby shower photos; you won’t want to miss our little DIY touches 🙂