The Famous Macarons

Macarons are somewhat new to me. I only found out about them shortly before I came to Paris, and in spite of stores dedicated to them I have never  bought one. I tried them when the Chef made them in one of our Demos from Basic, but we didn't make any then. It is known by everyone that is very very dificult to make good macarons; personally I do not think is hard, I think is tricky since the actual process of making them is not hard, but when to stop mixing that is the tricky part. If you undremix, you macarons won't be nice and smooth but grainy, if you overmix, they won't rise nicelly and look a bit like a tortilla.

The practical was in plated dessert, which was a big change since we have been doing mainly cakes, and not reallypersonal size  dishes. The chef made a Creme Brulee au Caramel (Caramel Creme Brulee) , Fondant Chocolat Glace sur Nid d'Abeille (Dark Chocolate Fondant with Bee's Nest), and Macarons Anis-Framboise ( Light Anis Cream and Raspberry filled Macarrons).

When I tasted the Creme Brulee au Caramel I thought it had a bit of a strong flavor since I was expecting more a mild flavor the one of a regular creme brulee, when I realized it was supposed to be caramel I understood why the "strong" flavor and it is good, but I think I prefer the regular creme brulee.

The Chocolate dessert was a bit to rich for me, the crisp it has nice, but what I really loved about this dessert is the white chocolate ice cream that goes with it, it is sooo good!!!

The macarons I find are usually always good, for this particular time I love the combination with the fresh fruit, but I am not a big fan of Anise, so didn't really like the Anise cream that much. 

For practical we only had to do the macarons. It was interesting because as I said this are plated desserts so we had to present our goodies plated for the chef to grade. So besides worrying about trying to get the macarons right, I had to think in how to present my macarons, be careful to use the raspberry coulis, but not too little or too much, same with the portion of the dessert you cannot put to big of a portion because you won't make money but cannot put too little so that people complain, and the final detail is it has to look good and be simple enough to be reproduced since technically this would be something served in a restaurant over and over again.

Macaron Anis-Framboise

My macarons where not very smooth on the top, I needed to mix a bit more, but when I asked the chef he told me to stop and do them so, I guess I need to just make sure next time the mixture is more liquidy.

Since I don't like Anise I didn't put the liquor in my cream, therefore it was really really good. I liked this desserts so hopefully we get to make more of this in Superior.

Other than that the chef liked it, he said I had a nice portion, and it was clean and pretty!!