Today, half a world away from me, hundreds of curious, excited, hungry Aussies were supposed to queue up for Adriano Zumbo’s Macaron Day. I was going to read the stream of #Zumbo tweets and Macaron Day 2011 blog posts with envy, recalling my first Macaron Day experience last year.
But Macaron Day 2011 has been postponed! Earlier this week Zumbo announced that nuts fell into the almond meal, postponing Macaron Day until November 27. Imagine if Zumbo HAD been able to sponsor a trip for me to participate in Macaron Day — I would have missed it!
Although the official Macaron Day has been postponed, I decided it couldn’t be a completely macaron-less day. So in the spirit of Macaron Day, I present you with a little love for the bite-sized treat.
Macaron Gifts
Nicole visited me while I was living in Australia, and just a few months later, she quit her job and joined me with her own Work & Holiday Visa. She’s been living in Sydney, working at a cupcake bakery, and teasing me with her constant Flickr uploads of macarons and Zumbo pastries.
Being the sweet person she is, she recently sent me a super “thinking of you” package.
This tasty book provides tips & techniques for making macarons, along with loads of recipes
A macaron tea/kitchen towel”
Nicole LOVES macarons and took a class at a local kitchen+cooking store to learn how to make them! I can’t wait to see her when she gets home so we can make some together.
Macaron or Macaroon?
This summer I wrote a post about macarOn versus macarOON, and ever since, I’ve continued to hear pastry chefs call the dessert “macaroon” and spell it with two O’s in food magazines.
Everyone seems confused.
One of Zumbo’s assistants assured me that they are indeed macarons (pronounced like it rhymes with the names Ron or Jon/John). *Shrugs*! Who knows.
Oh, the creator of this brilliant image does!
Macaron recipes
There are PLENTY of macaron recipes in books and online, so I’ll be spoiled for choice when I decide to make them for the first time. Here are the recipes I’ve saved on Pinterest as top contenders for my first macaron baking experience:
Pumpkin pie spice macarons with caramel, dark chocolate ganache and smoked sea salt.
Hot chocolate and marshmallow.
Macaron Day 2011
When Macaron Day rolls around in a few weeks, I may just celebrate with a batch of homemade macarons. Any sugestions on which recipe I should make?
Twitter Updates
Love the post 🙂
I’m not sure if Nicole deserves a medal for supporting you and keeping you in touch with the Macarons or punished for teasing you with her pictures and delightful messages about these tasty bites.
I know what they mean to you and how good Nicole has been in keeping you in the loop – So I’d have to go for giving her medal or something with the same sentiment :-)!
I like the sound of all of the flavors, but it’s the beautiful Fall, so for Pumpkin pie spice macarons I vote.
I think we should make the hot chocolate ones in December!! You in?
🙂 Yep, I’m in, love to make them with you! :-)!!!
That tea towel is adorable! I’m glad you didn’t have a totally macaro(o)n-free day despite the reschedule.
I saw a similar tea towel on Ebay (a friend send me a link) and before I knew it, Nicole had found this one and sent it to me 🙂
I forgot about Macaron Day!! I haven’t been to Zumbo yet and I just might have to make an appearance on November 27th not that I’ve been reminded.
And O.M.G. pumpkin pie spice macarons!!!!!!! I’ll have to perfect my baking techniques to I can get my fix of the holiday season while I sunbathe on Thanksgiving and Christmas in Oz!
I’d love if your first Zumbo experience was on Macaron Day!! Keep me posted if you do it! And if you bake some, please share…I need to find an entire day to devote to my first batch 🙂
Glad I could help keep you involved in the world of macarons! I think learning how to make them for ourselves is going to be even better than buying them because we can experiment & make them however we want (although Zumbo does have some pretty awesome flavors!) Hmmm, part of me wants to vote for the pumpkin pie spice macarons, but I think a pumpkin-inspired filing would be more authentic rather than the chocolate ganache & caramel – so . . . get working on a recipe!! 😉 I also like the sound of the chocolate avocado – gotta give that one a go sometime soon!
Maybe we can check out the chocolate-avo one, as I think it would take an experienced macaron eater to want to try those 😉 Since salted caramel is among my fave from Zumbo’s, I know that will be amongst my first attempts.
Wow if they had sponsored a trip for you out there you would have missed it. Well now it’s not to late to try one more time for them to sponsor you to go. So you know how to make these delicious things? OMG… now I want you to mail me some jaja. They are so good.. I would say make some peanut butter ones… I love peanut butter or some chocolate with almonds… I love those too. Oh man so many choices…
I haven’t made them yet, Jaime, but they’re on my to-do list for sure. I need a day or two to take over the kitchen and try to make several kinds.
Once I master them, I’ll make a batch for you for our first meet up!
I am waiting for you to start you own Macaron themed blog.
Seriously, Macaron was a Jeopardy answer a few weeks ago and you were the first person I though of. 🙂
I like the way you think, Erik :-)!! May have to do that 😉
And it pleases me to no end that when people think of macarons they think of me :-)!!
I don’t think you should follow a recipe, I think you should get creative and go nuts and see what you come up with. I would LOVE to see what kind of crazy yet edible recipe you think up Heather!
I could easily just gobble those up without sharing 😛