Macaron

The macaron is a small meringue-based confection made with almond flour, egg whites, and sugar. The single-disc form reaches back to medieval Italian and French monastic traditions; the modern double-decker macaron — two smooth-domed shells sandwiching a ganache or buttercream filling — was created in early-twentieth-century Paris. The house most associated with the modern form is Laduree, where Pierre Desfontaines is credited with sandwiching two shells around a ganache filling in the 1930s. The smooth, domed shell with its characteristic ruffled foot — the pied — at the base is the defining visual signature of the Parisian macaron.

A Parisian macaron is a small dome, the shell smooth and crisp, breaking to a soft, slightly chewy interior that gives way to a layer of creamy filling. The contrast of textures — crisp shell, chewy foot, soft filling — is the point; the flavors range across ganache, fruit, flower, and spice. The best macarons are eaten the day they are made, when the shell is at its crispest and the filling has not yet softened it.

The macaron rests on a French or Italian meringue made with almond flour. Egg whites are whipped with sugar — to soft peaks for French meringue, or with hot sugar syrup for the more stable Italian meringue — and folded with finely ground almond flour and powdered sugar to a smooth, flowing batter. The batter is piped into small rounds and rested to form a skin on the surface; this skin is what produces the characteristic smooth, domed top and the ruffled pied at the base during baking. In the oven, the surface skin sets first under the dry heat, while steam from the moisture in the batter lifts the un-set interior, forcing it out at the base to form the ruffled foot. The filling — ganache, buttercream, or jam — is sandwiched between two shells after cooling; over a few hours, moisture from the filling migrates into the shells, softening them slightly and fusing the whole into the characteristic tender-crisp texture.