Pin of the Week: Parisian Macarons

I love ADORE macarons. The kind with one O. The kind you find in fancy French bakeries, like the Bouchon Bakery - where I had a pistachio macaron right before seeing "The Phantom of the Opera" at the Venetian in Las Vegas. It clearly made an impression. I don't think it was the first macaron I'd had, but I don't remember any before it, because this one was so. so. so good. 

I had it in my mind that I wanted to make them for Jen's bridal shower, but I knew that they were difficult cookies to get right, so I had to do a test run before the event. I followed a pin I found on Pinterest which is a gal who uses Martha Stewart's recipe, and then adds all her notes about making them. I found them very helpful - and they were a success (well, half of them)! 

Two things I will do differently next time: 1) I will make them bigger, 2) and I will use only metal pans - the Pampered Chef baking stone was a complete flop.

I knew I was going to need to make my almond flour a little finer in the food processor, but since the first direction says to use a food processor to blend the sugar and almond flour I just did that, and called it good. Also the recipe called for baker's sugar (which is finer sugar, but not quite powdered status) - I used regular and they came out fine, but next time I'll try baker's sugar. I used yellow food coloring to match the lemon curd I used as filling. Also, I made them and froze them to see how they kept and tasted once thawed, and they were perfect. I will definitely make these ahead of time and freeze them

 They were DELICIOUS, I ate 4/5 of the batch on my all by myself.  ;) Here's the link!