Feb 10, 20182 min read

Macarons for a Valentine

Updated: Feb 12, 2020

Macarons are a perfect gift for your valentine. A slight crunch to the exterior but ever so soft, centered with the filling of their dreams. My take on a Valentine's Day macaron comes from the classic strawberries dipped in chocolate.

Before I begin talking about my Valentine's Day macarons, I would like to briefly touch on the subject of love.

Valentine's Day Haiku

love mysterious

warms you like the morning sun

casts its spell on you

Valentine's Day is a celebration of romantic love, which is nice, but there is so much more to love. Love and deep connection for your child, family, and friends is longer lasting and in the end, more meaningful. Recently, I read a story about a loving relationship between two people of different backgrounds and vastly different ages that I would like to share. The article is 'When Your Greatest Romance Is a Friendship', please click and read. That is the essence of true love for another, free of romantic expectations, they just loved each other, no explanation needed.

My Valentine's Day #macarons begin with the basic macaron shell recipe in the Bouchon Bakery cookbook. My previous blog post, Macarons for a Wedding , describes of the process of preparing the macaronage and baking the macaron shells.

The #macaronage was piped into heart shapes, allowed to dry slightly to form a thin skin, and then baked.

The macaron filling is a strawberry Italian buttercream piped around the edge of the #macaron shell with a center of dark chocolate ganache. The strawberry buttercream was adapted from the Italian buttercream recipe in Thomas Keller's cookbook the Bouchon Bakery. The dark chocolate ganache recipe is found in Dominique Ansel's cookbook, The Secret Recipes.