Macaron
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A macaron is a traditional French pastry from Nancy, a commune of the Meurthe et Moselle département, in northeastern France[citation needed]. Dating back to the 18th century, the macaron is made of egg whites, almond powder, icing sugar and sugar. This sweet pastry came out of the French courts' baker's oven as round meringue-like domes with a flat base.
[edit] History
In the early 1930 the bakery Ladurée in Paris started selling two traditional dome halves sandwiched with a sweet filling between. This resulted in giving the new macaron[1] a larger size, the possibility of flavored garnishes, and a newfound moistness that came from the garnish. Whereas the traditional macaron was sweet and dry and crunchy, the new macaron had the added attraction of being delicately crunchy on the outside, while moist, chewy and flavoursome on the inside.
A related pastry is the smaller Luxemburgerli.
[edit] Today
Many cookbooks provide macaron recipes, but the authentic Parisian macarons, with the multifarious flavors and colors, have continued to be in short supply, due to the difficulty in making them well. Today, there are but a few cities in which top quality macarons can be found. These include London (Paul Boulangerie, Yauatcha, Ladurée), Melbourne (Laurent Bakery), Sydney (Lindt Concept Store and Cafe), Paris (Dalloyau, Ladurée, L'Atelier Joël Robuchon, Pierre Hermé), Tokyo (Dalloyau, L'Atelier Joël Robuchon), Hong Kong (Le Goûter Bernardaud), New York (Fauchon, Bouchon Bakery, Payard, Le Maison Du Chocolate).
Flavours available can often vary with the seasons and include:
- almond
- blackcurrant
- caramel
- chocolate
- coconut
- coffee
- hazelnut praline
- lemon
- licorice
- orange
- pistachio
- raspberry
- rose
- violet
- walnut
Brightly-colored macarons by Ladurée were heavily featured in Sofia Coppola's 2006 film Marie Antoinette.
