I teased you all about my French macaron class last Sunday over at this post, so now I will finally reveal my fabulous morning of french macarons and baking like a pro!
Something you may not know is that I absolutely love baking, and that includes both healthy and not quite so healthy baked goods. The healthy stuff is usually just for me whereas the more indulgent baked goods are usually for my boyfriend and friends. My favorite healthy baked goods are my grain-free and refined sugar-free fudge brownies (SO GOOD), my blueberry coconut muffins, and my sugar free muffins.
I became obsessed with french macarons a few months ago because my former housemate, Alisa, started baking them, which in turn led to my boyfriend becoming obsessed with them! For those of you who do not know what french macarons are, they are a delicious ‘cookie’ made out of almond flour. Not to be confused with coconut macaroons. Anyway, although most of Alisa’s batches turned out well, it was really a 50:50 sort of thing and I knew it was annoying the heck out of her because she is a massive perfectionist (in a good way) 🙂 So when I saw that Macaronage Macarons bakery in Stockton were holding a class on how to bake french macarons I knew that we both had to attend!
Macaronage Macarons
Macaronage Macarons is an adorable bakery that specializes in macarons. It is located in Stockton, CA (where my boyfriend did his undergraduate) and is about an hour and a half drive from San Francisco.
French Macarons: Baking Like A Pro
Alisa and I were lucky enough to attend their newly launched macaron baking classes last sunday. The class was 2 and a half hours long and taught by the lovely Grace, the owner of Macaronage Macarons and macaron expert.
The class started off with some short introductions and then got straight into baking! Grace provided us all with a cheat sheet with recipes of macarons, various fillings, and the secret to how Macaronage Macarons make such amazing macarons (hint hint, it’s all to do with the type of method you use). We all practiced piping the macaron batter first before we actually made our ow macarons. I am so glad we got to practice because my first attempt was honestly horrendous. But my second attempt was pretty good for a first-time macaron baker (yeah, tooting my own horn).
We all got to choose our own food dye and so I chose a cute fuchsia color and clever Alisa made this gorgeous Tiffany blue color (she is obsessed lol) by mixing two food dyes together. We later learned how to make 4 different kinds of fillings and filled our macarons. The fillings were chocolate, buttercream, salted caramel and mint chocolate. I used all 4 fillings of course haha, got to have that variety 🙂
The class was $35 and was such a fantastic price considering that you are paying for both Grace’s time and for the ingredients that were provided to us. Most places in the Bay Area (and Salt Lake City, I checked) start at $85 for a 2 or 3 hour class which is just ridiculous. It was quite a drive out to Stockton but definitely worth it. Wish I didn’t have to rush back and study right after though!
The finished product!
Who else here loves baking? What is your favorite healthy (or non-healthy) thing you like to bake?
Honestly yours,
Alice