.

It was Mother’s Day here in the UK on Sunday and we happened to have our grandson to stay over the weekend, so we decided to make some yummy pink macaroons for his yummy mummy.
By macaroons I mean French macarons, the almondy meringue kind that come in a
beautiful array of colours

and not the traditional coconut macaroons

I know some people are saddened that French macarons (one o in the spelling) are widely being called macaroons (two o spelling) and that they get quite annoyed that people don’t realise they are two different things.  However I never did like the coconut macaroons, so I’m quite happy to call the delectable French almondy meringue things by either name.
Anyhoo, I digress – back to the task in hand…

.

The first recipe I read was the BBC food recipe by the gorgeous Lorraine Pascale from her “Baking Made Easy” TV series.  I expected this recipe to be, well, “easy”.  However it called for making a sugar syrup and I really didn’t fancy having hot liquid sugar around an excitable six year old.  I was quite surprised Lorraine went this route for her recipe, as she is famed for her saying that “Baking is easy – it’s not always quick but it is always easy”.  Well, sorry Lorraine, but working with hot sugar when not completely necessary doesn’t sound very easy to me!

.

I was starting to think that making macaroons with a six year old was a bad idea.  Then I remembered that Michel Roux junior, French-British chef extraordinaire, had served his apprenticeship with a Master Patissier in Paris.  If anyone should know about making French macarons it’s him.

 I found a recipe of his on a mini blog and lo – no sugar syrup required.
In fact, no other recipe I looked at required sugar syrup!
With only four ingredients (ground almonds, icing sugar, egg white, caster sugar) plus the food colours of your choice, it is all very straightforward.  I separated the eggs but my six-year-old grandson did everything else himself.  All I did was talk him through the stages and check he understood the number on the scales where he needed to measure to.
So, here is his lovely bright pink mixture..

I could see that it was a tad over-mixed, so the macaroons would probably be a bit flat, but how do you stop a six year old when he’s enjoying himself?!  I thought he would find the piping a bit difficult and he did keep forgetting to twist the top of the piping bag closed but with me holding the top closed and him doing the squeezing, he piped out twelve beautiful round macaroons.
The following day we made chocolate ganache to sandwich them together and here is the final product, all gift-wrapped and ready for mummy.

 He kept forgetting that they were called macaroons, so came up with his own name for them.
I can now reveal that there is an end to the macaron/macaroon spelling fiasco –
these are now officially named
“not meringues”!

.

Well done wee man!
It was fun but exhausting.  I hope you and mummy enjoyed eating them.

Nana Vohn

xx