The last two months has seen my increased obsession with baking the perfect macarons. Since I tasted the delectable macarons from Pierre Herme and LaDuree in Paris, I realised that the chewy ones we often get here in Singapore are not the real thing. However, with my busy schedules, baking had taken a backseat. It wasn’t until I came across the Pierre Herme book “Macaron” that was sitting forlornly on my shelf that I resolved to start baking macarons again. I had purchased the book on a whim when I saw it at a Pierre Herme boutique in Paris. The only problem? The book was in French.

That started the painstaking translation of the book, recipe by recipe. So far, I’ve gotten through about four recipes. The first try was the Caramel Fleur De Sel macaron. I baked these on silicon baking paper instead of silpats, and baked them at 175°C. They turned out nicely, though the bases of some of the macarons were still slightly undercooked. The main problem I had was browning.

Happy that this batch turned up pretty successfully, I decided to try my hand at solving the problems, namely the partially cooked bottoms of the shell and the browning. Many tries later, I still have not completely solved the problem. Silpat allowed easy removal when the shells were well or over baked, but once slightly underbaked, the shells were impossible to remove, resulting in deep frustrations. I managed to solve the browning issue by covering the top of the tray with another tray. However, the bottoms were still problematic. The feet, though they stood up nicely at the start, soon overflowed to the sides of the shells and protruded from there. Seems like more experiments are to come.