Macarons and Macarongs.

Ever since I first tried one in Lyon in 2008 I have had a bit of a thing for Macarons. My use of the French spelling is not to be poncey but to distinguish it from the English macaroon (A single layered plain almond or coconut biscuit). The macarons I am talking about are the Parisian style pastel coloured biscuits sandwiched together with ganache or butter cream fillings.

This year when I was living in France I tried a fair few macarons and at Christmas bought a big box to bring back to England with me to share with the family which went down very well indeed. When I visited Paris I went to Ladurée and sampled some of their delights although I have since read that Pierre hermé actually has the best macarons in Paris and not ladurée but my rose and ginger macaron was divine and so until I try Hermé’s I am satisfied.

Macarons are becoming more popular in the UK, and with recipes in food magazines and on cooking programmes, making them is (or should be) easier than ever.

Talking over a cup of tea one afternoon my mother and I decided we would try making macarons for ourselves and set to work. We found a recipe online which seemed to be one of the simpler ones we had read and followed it to create macarons. They were a complete success! They had a smooth crisp outer shell, were moist on the inside and had the all important foot. We sandwiched them with a dark chocolate ganache and raspberry jam and they were delicious. News of our success had been spread to my boyfriend in Cheshire, my boss down the road and my dad who at the time was in China! We couldn’t wait to make another batch to show off our newly acquired baking skill. We could make the perfect macarons... Or so we thought.

Almost 10 batches later and we have not been able to make another successful batch! No matter how hard we try. I have made them by myself, we have made them as a team. We have used different almonds, then the same almonds, different food colouring, different recipes, the same recipe NOTHING WORKS they just come out as lumpy undercooked blobs. We just can’t seem to get it right. To say we had beginners luck is an understatement.

Reading online we are not the only people to encounter problems but some of the recipes for “perfect macarons” make my heart sink, they involve doubling up on trays, spinning the trays mid cook, leaving the oven open, removing a tray, and then finishing the cooking with the oven off. I can’t bring myself to try this because they were so perfect t the first time and all we did was leave them to do their thing no faffing about at all.

By my own admission, despite my love of cooking and trying new things, when a new recipe doesn’t work or things go very wrong I do tend to sulk a bit. I think it is important for my own sanity to give up on macarons once and for all. Anyone for a trip to Paris?

Happiness is a bowl of Norfolk strawberries

A market at last

Before moving to France, I was convinced I would make weekly trips to a local food market and relish in the delightful produce that France had to offer and make weekly trips to buy my fruit and vegetables from a bustling market among locals. I had experienced something similar on a trip to Lyon where a Saturday food market lined the river bank and it was the most spectacular place to be. Unfortunately my experience in Nancy was to be very different. There is an indoor fruit and vegetable market in Nancy but I have struggled to suss out who had the best produce and found some of it quite tired and on the odd occasion I have bought something from them the stall holders often struggled with my accent which made me immediately clam up and run for the nearest supermarket where I was safe in the knowledge I could choose my own fruit and vegetables without having to speak to anyone. My past experiences of French supermarkets had demonstrated a wide variety of good quality fresh fruit and vegetables and even better, the majority of it local to France. The experience I have had here has not been so good, the supermarket in the centre of town which I use has very poor quality produce, often mouldy and covered in fruit flies which really saddened me. Not having a kitchen here, my need for lots fresh produce is reduced, and often a rummage around would find some okay apples and clementines, a passable cucumber and a bag of rocket but deep down I yearned for a local market full of good quality local produce sold by people that knew what they were selling me and had a passion for it. Luckily for me, everything changed last week, and although it is now just 2 weeks until I leave France, in my opinion it is better late than never.

Every second Sunday in Nancy there is a brocante market which is an antiques and junk market. On a side street attached to the market, I walked along a path lined with stalls, chickens roasting on a spit, cheese of every shape and size, local honey and of course, the Holy Grail that is a proper French fruit and vegetable stall. I spied the pile of deep red glistening cherries with a sign sticking out that proudly noted their place of origin as France and before I knew it I had queued up and purchased 200 grams of them. I realised how silly I had been to be scared, I know the vocabulary for ordering food, and the result meant a happy afternoon in the sun eating gorgeous cherries, I was thrilled. This week I went down again, whilst there was no brocante I was pleased to see the food market had returned. I queued up among the Sunday shoppers listening to people ordering and being advised on the best produce whilst being handed samples of torn apart fresh apricots. Luckily I was served by the younger calmer grocer and not the exuberant older gentleman who would shout at the crowd enthusiastically about his special deals for the weekend. I ordered 300 grams of cherries as the smaller purchase a week disappeared rather too quickly, a punnet of small sweet strawberries, six apricots and some rhubarb. Everything I bought is French produce, everything was ordered by me, and best of all from a Market like the ones I had been dreaming of before I even arrived.