Part of living in a city means having access to a diverse range of cultures and activities. There are tons of workshops available throughout Edinburgh for complete beginners to try. I’ve taken quite a few classes so far such as a latte art class at the Brew Lab, a highland dancing class with CityLife and most recently a macaron baking class with Mademoiselle Macaron.
Macarons, different from the coconut macaroon, are round cookies, usually colorful, with a flavored filling. One of the most aesthetic sweets, I have always thought by the look of it that macarons are very hard to make but I was proven wrong at the workshop. Mademoiselle Macaron provided simple, easy to follow instructions for making the shell and the fillings and even gave us some of her most useful baking tips. Like the bakers on those bake-off shows, we slammed our pans on the table to get out air bubbles and used different stirring methods like ‘the figure eight’ and ‘painting’ to keep the shell batter at the correct consistency.
Within twenty or so minutes the shell batter was ready and piped onto our baking sheets in medium discs and we moved onto making the fillings which was easy to make as well. Though the actual execution took a minimal amount of time, the setting of the shells and batter was more time consuming. Our group did not complain though since we got to sit down for tea and taste a couple new flavors Mademoiselle Macaron just created like a biscoff cookie and a cucumber and mint cookie (tasted much better than it sounds). Probably the most enjoyable part about the macaron making was when we had to pipe in the fillings. We were all chomping at the bit to taste all the flavors we made but our instructor said that we should put them in the fridge or freezer overnight before eating so that the shell absorbs some of the flavor of the filling; I can say now that it was definitely worth the wait!
The class was a great time and we each walked away with a few macarons of different flavors, like chocolate, orange, rose, pistachio and vanilla. I can’t wait to make them with my family since it was very simple and tasty. My favorite thing about macarons is the colorful look that always catches people’s eye and makes them smile!
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