Day 22: Paris - Macaron Cooking Class

Today was officially my "Double M" day in Paris.  "Double M" you ask?  Well given it's Macarons and Monet day, I thought "Double M" sounded a little more catchy... Anyway it turned out to be a truly awesome day...

First up, I successfully made French macarons. They are quite tricky and intensive little buggers to make, but OMG they taste soooooooooo good.  Of course the true test will be to replicate them at home. 

At 9am I joined 4 other aspiring cooks from the US & Canada along with our instructor Rachel at the Cook 'N With Class school in Montmartre.

We soon learnt that today we'd be making 4 different types of macarons.  We started off by firstly making the fillings for our macarons as they had to go into to the fridge to cool down before being used. The toppings included a crème pâtissière, salted butter caramel, chocolate ganache and raspberry...

Watching the temperature of the caramel...

It didn't take long for me to come to the realization that the process of macaron making requires quite a bit of forward thinking and it's not like making a cake where you can just decide on the spur of the moment that you want to make one. You actually need to really plan out your macaron making and plan ahead as many of the processes are quite time consuming and some things, like the resting of the egg whites, requires a few days for the best results.

We made a basic macaron shell batter that was then split into three bowls which were then colored to pastle pink, green and purple. Interesting little fact - we learnt that the way the shops get them looking so bright is by adding titanium dioxide to make the mixture whiter which then makes the colours stand out.

The macaron batter...

After making the batter, Rachel then showed us the correct way to pipe the shells and thankfully I mastered this pretty well. To make it easier, a template was placed under the baking paper which assists in trying to get some form of consistency in the size of our shells. Once the mixture was piped onto the trays, the shells then had to rest to form a “skin” before they were placed in the oven. Thankfully when our shells went into the oven, they rose like any good macaron should and we were soon turning out our 'perfect' shells.

My brilliant piping skills on show...

Resting - waiting for the 'skin' to form before going into the oven...

In the oven - see they're rising... Yeah!!!

The shells once they came out of the oven...

Removing the shells from the baking paper to cool...

Our shells cooling down before we can fill them...

 Once the shells were cooled, it was then time for our creativity to flow as we added our fillings. Most of mine were a combination of either the salted butter caramel, the chocolate ganash or the raspberry. We also added a dark chocolate or white chocolate button in the middle to give it a little something extra.

My macarons...

My little box of goodies...

Now for the most important thing of all – the taste test... Well let me just say that they tasted as good as the ones I'd tried from Laduree last night. Before doing the class my favorite macaron flavour was raspberry, but without a shadow of a doubt, that has now been replaced by the salted butter caramel. It is heavenly....

The student and the teacher...

I think I left the kitchen at around 1pm with my little box of goodies safely stored in their carry bag. I grabbed some lunch and then headed back to the Île de la Cité to do the Left Bank Walking tour with Discover Walks - Walking tours that I had meant to do yesterday...

I met our guide for the afternoon Thomas and along with around 15-20 other people, joined him for a 90 minute walk around the left bank and this time I actually got the location right (at the horse statue of  Charlemagne near Notre Dame).

Our tour guide for the afternoon - Thomas...

It was great to wander the back streets of the Latin quarter which is a buzzing location. Our tour included wandering the banks of the Seine; the adventures of Hemingway and other authors and artists; the many narrow medieval streets, including the many cafés and terraces; and the Sorbonne.

Someone had a big night...

At one point during the tour, Thomas noticed my carry bag with the see-through box containing my macarons. He made some comment like “I see you have discovered the delights of Paris” and was more than a little surprised when I said I'd actually made them. He thought I'd bought them, so that was a nice little bit of flatery that a real Parisian thought my macarons looked great.

Group photo...

After the tour concluded, I headed back to the hotel to drop off my macarons and collect my ticket for the Monet exhibition. I arrived at the Grand Palais and typically, instead of heading left after exiting the metro station, I went right, so I basically circled the entire building before finding the entry. I was really glad that I'd purchased my ticket on-line with a timed entry as the wait would have been a couple of hours if I only bought my ticket when I got there.

The exhibition was absolutely phenomenal and I spent a good few hours there.  It was packed and the in the first few rooms, it really was impossible to appreciate the paintings fully, but thankfully as I got futher into the exhibition, the crowds started to thin out.  It was just so amazing to see so many of Monet's works in one place and I feel very, very lucky.

After another big day, I grabbed a quick bite to eat before heading back to the hotel. I'm really living up this Parisian night-life... Not!