Macarons, desiccation and prettiness

I present my new creation: le macaron déshydraté au chocolat noir et à la noix de coco. Behold the lovely thick layer of dark chocolate and toasted coconut ganache… so generous you might think I’ve been shopping at Pierre Hermé, but no! I am in fact lining myself up to compete with the maître himself. And I’ve done something completely new. These beauties are the first completely desiccated macarons ever presented for public delectation. With skill and precision, I transformed my piped ivory wonders to these richly tanned rusks. Be quick, as these are definitely a limited edition from Maison Duncan.

You see, there I was sitting on my sofa, reading the bazillion blog posts in my feed reader (how many times do I have to tell you internet people to stop writing so much and get out more??). Suddenly I had one of those lurches in the stomach, a wave of nausea that only careless pâtissiers and confiseurs can truly know… a good deal more than eight minutes had passed since my tray of macarons had been consigned to the oven. Nooooooooooooo!!!

And so these macarons déshydratés were born. Deeply tanned almond macarusks macawrongs macarons as one might find on a beach on the Côte d’Azur.

There’s one very useful result of this approach to macaron cooking. You can get a clear feel for whether you’ve done the batter right and set the oven temperature correctly. You see, in their state of petrification, you can cut open the macaron without any fear of crushing and see the crumb. No big air pocket. Hooray. Good foot. Hooray.

Thankfully, I can do one of those television chef “here’s one I made earlier” jobs and show you some pretty little things too.


Macarons d’amour à la canelle et à l’abricot. Damn it’s difficult to make shapes!

13 thoughts on “Macarons, desiccation and prettiness”

  1. Awwww Duncan, that Macarons d’amour au canelle et abricot sounds like full of love…
    So adorable! I can imagine how difficult to make those heart shape.
    Cheers,
    Elra

  2. Don’t worry, I haven’t been blogging for ages. So many blogs all lined up, don’t know if I’ll ever get to them though. Like itself is too busy right now.

    Those heart shape macarons are amazing to look at. And cinnamon and apricot sound like a very interesting combination.

  3. Can you believe I still haven’t attempted to make a macaron? Just another case of life getting in the way, I guess.

    But these look lovely. I’m in danger of drooling on my keyboard (charming image, eh?).

  4. Hey, don’t look at me! (Tleast not when you say that.) I only write once a week at the most! I always thought you called it L’Atelier Duncan 😛 I’m sure biscuit macaron sounds a tad more appealing. Than desiccated. Desiccated. We just talked about that!

    [This commenter has been banned from commenting again until he supplies fourteen luscious delectable gateaux to compensate for pointing out my spelling booboo 😛 ]

  5. The number of times I sit down for a quick bit of blogging while something is in the oven and quickly forget about my baked goods – I would be the charcoal queen if not for my oven timer!

    Your macarons look quite amazing as it is not something I have tried

  6. That all sounds like a very fancy way of saying you burnt the bums off your macarons :p

    Nice to know it happens even to the best of us!!

  7. Heh heh. I badly scorched a pan of caramel once, doing the same thing. It took at least a week or more of soaking and scraping to get it back to normal.

  8. Hi Duncan,
    Your macaroons looked AMAZING! I’m a big fan of macarons myself. Been hearing that you made the best in town. I made some this christmas, so I know what a tricky little bugger they are to make. It’s a shame that it’s hard to find a good macaroons in VIC. tried Laurent & Cafe Vue, but they’re just ordinary. Looking forward trying Noisette and La tropezienne

    mmm.. wish I can taste yours.. simply stunning =)

  9. Hi, these macarons look amazing. I am completely obsessed with the little things myself. The other week I flew down to Melbourne to attend a day macaron class at Savour Chocolate and Patisserie school. I have decided March will be “macaron month” to encourage me to practice a few more methods and techniques. All your instructions and detail have been helpful so far. But do not be surprised to see more comments/questions from me!!! P.S. Like your idea of a foodbloggers get-together. Would love to do that in Brisbane.

  10. Ahhh sigh, bigger sigh. I would love to make a macaron petrified or not petrified without air pockets like yours. I have all but given up!

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