There are many many books out at the moment about those delicious little treats known as Macarons, biscuity/cakey treasures that originated in France and have since spread globally. In Sydney, Adriano Zumbo has an annual Macaron day where his shop sells 64 different flavours! His forthcoming book,
Zumbo, is going to be filled with wonderful images and recipes for macarons and will be well worth a look.
I've plucked three different books off the shelf in our cooking section that are macaron related and I'm going to explore, drool and generally make myself really, really hungry. Unfortunately Froth cafe don't sell Macarons. Maybe I'll ask if they will make some for me?
Ok, no luck there.
Secrets of Macarons by Jose Marechal is a lovely little hardcover book full of recipes and pictures. He focusses on the 'nine classic flavours', plain, vanilla, chocolate, coffee, caramel, strawberry, raspberry, lemon, and my favourite - pistachio.
Bitesize features recipes for lots of little treats including blood orange macarons, which sould fantastic as do the peanut with salted caramel. Finally, my favourite is
I Love Macarons by Hisako Ogita, a beautifully displayed and fun book that really manages to convey the passion and obsession I feel whenever someone mentions the word 'maracon' in my vicinity.
From these books you get an idea of why Macarons are so popular. They're a challenge to create, but not impossible. Once you have the techniques perfected, you have the ability to be as creative as you want with the flavours, and as Adriano Zumbo has demonstrated you can get very creative indeed. Another great thing is that they are so popular out here that you don't need to pine for Ladurée or Pierre Hermé, it's easy to either get good quality ones locally, or simply take up the challenge and make them yourself.
Unless you're like me, and take more pleasure in things when someone else has done all the hard work.
Written by Mark
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