Random Musings: The Macaron Bar

Hello everyone! This past weekend I had a great opportunity to take a class on making macarons at Macaron Bar in Over the Rhine.

I had always heard that macarons were the most difficult dessert to correctly bake, so I'm glad I waited to attempt them until this class. I highly recommend signing up for a class when new classes open up (they are sold out through April right now- and I totally understand why).

A few things about macarons you may or may not know:

- Macarons are different from macaroons

- Macaroons are a coconut cookie

-Macarons are a french cookie that has an almond cookie with filling

-The flavor of macarons comes almost entirely from the filling

-They are best if eaten the day after made: then the filling has time to infuse into the shells

We had a class of 8 people (4 pairs) and one instructor. The class was set up so the instructor would demonstrate the steps then we practiced on our own while he and an assistant observed our baking.

First we made the meringue and folded it with almond powder and powdered sugar to create the cookies. Each pair of students made a different color macaron and we all traded colors and shared our different colors.

While the cookies were baking, we created our ganaches to fill them with. Each pair did a different flavor (and traded and shared again) and we ended up with White Chocolate Rose, Dark Chocolate, Vanilla Bean, and Salted Caramel ganaches. YUM!