What is a macaron?

Macarons, also known as macaroons and French crumpets, are a French dessert based on meringue crumpets made with egg whites, powdered sugar, cane sugar, almond flour or almond cream, and food coloring. The filling, such as ganache, cream cheese, or jam, is usually sandwiched between two cookies.

This dessert is characterized by a delicate, square-topped, rounded and ruffled circumference and a flat base. It is moderately moist and melts in the mouth. Macarons come in a wide variety of flavors, whether it's the traditional flavors of raspberry and chocolate or the newer flavors of foie gras and matcha. Macarons first appeared in Italian monasteries, and later spread to France.

The well-known macaron (French: macaron), in fact, the first to be remembered is generally its nickname "girl's breasts". In fact, macaron comes from the Italian maccherone, is fine dough, that is, the meaning of the delicate dough. It is a French dessert made of egg whites, almond flour, sugar and frosting, usually with a filling of fruit sauce or cream between two cookies. Macarons are rumored to have first appeared in Italian convents when a nun named Carmelie made this dessert of ground almonds as an alternative to non-vegetarian food, additionally known as the nun's macaroon, and was not brought to France until 1533.

Ladurée, a century-old boutique founded in 1862 with its head office in Paris and branches around the world, claims to be the creator of the French macaron, and this year it finally opened a store in Shanghai.

Ladurée's popularity has been boosted by its branding in a variety of hip and flashy movies and TV shows, while Pierre Hermé, another famous brand, is known for rewriting the history of the flavors and practices of crumpets. Traditional flavors are based on chocolate, coffee, caramel, vanilla, almonds, paste peaches, and ité has made the flavors more varied: strawberry, blueberry, pistachio, raspberry ...... Compared to traditional macarons, Pierre Hermé's flavors are more varied, because of a number of additional original seasonal, limited edition flavors, and is also known as the "Hermes in macarons"

For the high price of a small sweet cake everyone is also a little incomprehensible. In fact, the main reasons for the high price of macarons are as follows:

Raw materials: the main ingredients of macarons are almond flour, powdered sugar and filling, compared to other flour-based pastries, the cost is a little more expensive. If you buy a cheap macaron in the market, don't fool around with it yet, it's likely to be made from peanut flour instead of almond flour.

Manual: The production of macarons is very troublesome compared to that of the pastry, which is called a kind of "king or queen". Each step of the procedure, the ratio, the portion need to pay extra attention to detail, beginners often have to experience countless failures of experience, not to mention the basic models on the flavor innovation.

Making and preserving: although the volume of macarons is small, but the actual very accounted for the baking area of the oven, a box is also a little. And the yield of qualified macarons is low, the number of macarons from one oven that can be perfectly placed in a nice box wrapped with a ribbon is very limited.

Macarons can be eaten in a variety of ways, so let's learn how to eat them:

It's best to keep them refrigerated and eat them within 24 hours of release.

The classic way to eat macarons is with a small cup of black coffee or black tea, which is perfect for the sweetness of the macarons.

Innovative: Ceylon black tea, Darjeeling, or even smoked Tieguanyin can complement the delicate and elegant "touch" of macarons.

Mature eating: If you can get used to the sweetness of macarons, a refreshing liqueur such as icewine can also bring out the richness of the flavor.