macaronsAs anyone who has read my Blog, Facebook page, Twitter account or is even my friend, you know of my absolute love/hate relationship with trying to make French Macarons.  I love these little cookies from heaven but so far (at 1east 15 tries) I have not managed to perfect them.  For something with such simple ingredients these are quite possibly the hardest things I have ever attempted to make. 

Not being able to take it anymore my friends bought me everything to do with French Macarons from books to baking equipment to one of the best gifts, a lesson in making French Macarons at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts.  Thank you Stacey!

I was thrilled and a little nervous as I have to date been an absolute failure.  However, as soon as I arrived, along with 10 other students and of course my friend Stacey, I was soon put at ease by Chef Delphin Gomes‘ happy and easy going disposition.

The class started with a little overview of what can and does go wrong, even with an experienced 25 year veteran.  Wow – even a highly experienced Master Pastry Chef is admitting some failure.  I liked him immediately.  We were very quickly put to work right after each of us picked which Macarons we were going to make.  Stacey and I were on Lemon Macarons with a Lemon Ganache and Raspberry Macarons with a Raspberry Ganache.

With a lot of humor from Chef we were walked through everything step-by-step, even as far as him holding the piping bag with you to show you how to pipe the perfect Macaron.  Some were wrong, some were okay and some were perfect.  

This truly is a fantastic class that I would not hesitate in recommending to anyone.   As you can see our Macarons looked fantastic.  My office colleagues loved me the next day as I proudly proclaimed my success (in the classroom) and shared all of the Macarons.  If I left them at home I would have eaten them all – not good.  I even stayed in the kitchen for 30 minutes explaining the process to my colleagues like I was some sort of expert.  It was very gratifying!

I am going to try and make these Macarons myself this weekend and I will happily share the recipe and, fingers crossed, my success at making them at home.  Wish me luck!

Tracey