Macarons are a perfect gift for your Valentine, friends, or yourself. I have difficulty expressing myself, my feelings, and my emotions. I have found that I can express myself through baking. Baking and giving to friends and family is a deeply rewarding experience and is a way for me to show my love and appreciation for them being in my life. It is a way to say I Love You in action rather than words. My take on Valentine's Day macarons comes from the classic strawberries dipped in chocolate.
Before discussing my Valentine's Day macarons, I would like to touch on love briefly.
Valentine's Day Haiku
love mysterious
warms you like the morning sun
cast its spell on you
Valentine's Day celebrates 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. I read a story in The New York Times about a loving relationship between two people of very 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 it. That is the essence of true love for another, free of romantic expectations. They just loved each other, no explanation was needed.
While preparing macarons, I enjoy immersing myself in the process, focusing on the person or persons I am preparing them for. It’s a form of working meditation. 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 preparing the macaronage and baking the macaron shells. The exterior of the macaron shell has a slight crunch, but it is ever so soft, centered with the filling of their dreams. I added one teaspoon of vanilla paste to the meringue before folding it into the almond flour/egg white mixture. This gave the shell a flavor profile to blend with the strawberry and dark chocolate filling. I’m all about having flavorful macarons. So many you buy taste more like cardboard than the delicious delicacy they can be.
Once the macaronage was developed and slowly flowed like lava, it was piped into heart shapes. They were allowed to dry slightly to form a thin skin and then baked. While baking, they rose and formed perfect feet.
The macaron filling is a strawberry Italian buttercream piped around the edge of the macaron shell with a center of dark chocolate ganache. The Italian buttercream recipe is in Thomas Keller's cookbook, The Bouchon Bakery. I added strawberry preserves to the buttercream. The dark chocolate ganache recipe is in Dominique Ansel's cookbook, The Secret Recipes. As you bite into the macaron, your taste buds explode in delight. The slight crunch is followed by the soft interior of the macaron shell, next comes the strawberry buttercream, and ending with the rich dark chocolate ganache. The tartness of the strawberry buttercream contrasts perfectly with the richness of the dark chocolate ganache. The way the flavors come together is a true delight.
You don’t have to have a Valentine to bake for. Consider baking them for yourself and/or your friends. You/they will be delighted that you took the time to make the macarons or whatever else you may prepare. I get so much joy from baking and giving treats to others. Seeing the smile on their faces and the twinkle in their eyes, anticipating enjoying the treat, makes all the effort worthwhile. What better way to show love for yourself, family, friends, and possibly a Valentine and to build connections that can last a lifetime than to bake for them?
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