It wasn't all that long ago when I had no idea what a French macaron was. My friend Lisa brought me what looked like a chocolate cookie sandwich, but one bite of that decadent goodness changed my world. Crunchy on the outside, yet soft and chewy on the inside and filled with a chocolate raspberry ganache, that was one cookie (based on a David Lebovitz recipe) I would never forget. It left me dying for another and another, haunting my thoughts about how such a perfect cookie could come to be. The baker in me decided to take up the challenge to recreate that unforgettably delicious cookie and to create the perfect macaron, a journey that has left me wanting to pull out my hair on more occasions than I would like to admit. There is so much technique and perfection that goes into making these cookies--a few strokes too many and you lose those perfect little "feet," but too few and you will end up with cracked shells; temperatures too high and they will crack, but too low and they will not cook through, leaving you with hollow shells. After years of practice and fiddling with different temperatures, flavorings, and fillings, I am getting closer to my end goal, but still have a few tweaks to make here or there to create "the perfect macaron." It has become somewhat of an addiction: batch after batch, one trial after another, playing with endless flavor combinations.
