You say macaron, I say macaroon

Let's not call the whole thing off, okay? I'm sure we can get to the bottom of this.

In my last post I talked about wedding cake alternatives. Well, it turns out my sister was a little alarmed when I referred to this as a macaroon tower. For her and for lots of others, macaroons are cookies made of coconut. The colourful little almond-meringue disks sandwiched together with ganache or buttercream are macarons.

Except I don't agree. The debate rages around the blogosphere so I know I'm in the minority, but to me, macaroon is simply the English word for macaron. Even Ladurée, the most famous purveyor, calls them macarons on their French website and macaroons on their English one. Both the almond and the coconut versions start off as a meringue of egg whites and sugar, so it seems perfectly reasonable to accept them as the same sort of cookie. Personally, I think the macaron brigade is simply disdainful of the humble coconut macaroon and doesn't want to accept any relationship between the two.

Now that we've got the name sorted (feel free to disagree with me and let me know!), let's talk about making these little devils. Every time I pass Ladurée's shop in London, I want to buy some - and I never do. They always seem expensive and indulgent, and I am nothing if not thrifty. But my mind was on macaroons the other day and I had a radical idea - I can do just as well at home! Well, ha. Ha ha and ha.

At the outset, macaroon making seems easy. It's a matter of whipping some egg whites, folding a few ingredients together into a stiff meringue and piping it into little rounds for baking. What mere macaroon mortals like me are not privy to are the secrets. Making perfect macaroons, ones with smooth, hard tops and a little crust of 'feet' at the bottom, is all about technique and tricks passed down by generations of pastry chefs. I did find some of these tips around the net, but they seemed finicky, complicated and boring. I am a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants baker. Suffice to say, I failed miserably.

Do these bizarre little sandwiches look anything like the real deal? I think we can all safely agree, no. Mine resembled an entirely different cookie altogether, some poor, distant relation that you don't want at the family party. Knobbly, too browned, chewy (I have never found the damp English winters very conducive to meringue) and just plain sad-looking.


Given that my foray into macaroon making was a total, unmitigated disaster, I'm not bothering to post the recipe. My results don't exactly make you want to run to the kitchen and try your hand, do they?