My curly-haired, blue-eyed daughter, Izzy, went to France this year, and came home confirming that those pastel, cream-filled sandwich cookies I keep seeing everywhere, Oreos gone to the ball, “macarons,” are not just a whimsicial trend.
“Mom,” Izzy said, jetlag bleary, barely free from the luggagle claim, “macarons are amazing.” Even after a couple of good nights’ sleep, the cookie passion didn’t fade; the conviction in Izzy’s voice only grew stronger. “Mom,” she declared, well-rested days later, “French maracons are amazing.”
Two months passed after Izzy’s departure from French soil, and said confection still ruled. Take your chocolate chip cookies, your brownies, even your rosemary shortbread! – Izzy tossed her brown curls at them all. “Maracons,” she said definitively, “are AMAZING.”
So when a friend suggested a cooking class at The French Culinary Institute in New York, I thought, parfait. Izzy will be sixteen in five months; Isn’t a cooking class in Soho, learning to make the prettiest, best thing you’ve tasted in your sixteen years alive, along with another sweet, cookie-passionate girl friend, better than diamond studs?
The two daughters, Izzy and Marguerite, enrolled in Madeleines and Macarons, and the two mothers happily escorted them. (Such a strain! All that shopping on Saturday! That trip to the Met! That dinner at The Village Tart!)
After their mothers enforced the “protein for breakfast rule” upon the girls at Balthazar, (see more blogs on that) they walked to the Culinary Institute where each girl, a little confused, received their blue caps and aprons. The mothers departed and the daughters marched to confectionary work. The results? Smiles and sweets.
Following is my interview with Izzy Rabin on the train back to Boston that evening:
Heather: Izzy, tell me two significant moments in the class.
Izzy: When we got the hang of doing the “squeezy thing” making macarons, and you get four perfect rows of perfect little circles, and they look so pretty. And when we finally got to stick them together, you know, to spread the cream in the middle and stick them together.
Heather: What’s the secret to making macarons?
Izzy: You have let them sit once they’ve been squeezed on to the tray. You let them sit at room temperature for 20-60 minutes.
Heather: Why?
Izzy: So then they develop the hard shell at the top. You test it with your finger, and if it comes off sticky they’re not ready yet. That’s the whole thing: they have to be crusty on the outside, and soft on the inside.
Heather: But you’re talking about before you even bake them?
Izzy: Yes, it has to form a shiny crust on the top before they bake.
And another secret is you have to let them sit once they’ve been cooked and you put the cream on and everything. You can’t eat them until the next day, so they really get hard on the outside and soft on the inside.
Heather: So that’s the secret to a great macarons – the different textures?
Izzy: Yes.
Heather: What’s the secret to a madeleine?
Izzy: You have to grease the pan really well.
Heather: With what?
Izzy: Our teacher, Kir, relied entirely on Pam.
Heather: another secret?
Izzy: The batter has to sit until it’s cold and thick, about 20 minutes in the refrigerator. I think this does something to the butter.
Heather: The butter in the recipe is melted, right?
Izzy: Yes. Oh, what Kir does with the madeleines is – theyre’ really pretty easy, – he takes the batter and keeps it cold, they only have to bake for 5 minutes, so at the end of a dinner party he’ll squeeze them out into the pans, and he’ll bake them until they get the little lump -
Heather: What’s the lump?
Izzy: The little lump! You know, the madeleine lump! You get the shell bottom – that comes from the madeleine pan. But you don’t serve the madeleines shell side up; you serve them shell side down.
Heather: Why?
Izzy: It’s just how it’s always been done. And so the little lump comes from the heat. Because they’re so small, the heat pushes the dough up really fast and that’s why they only have to cook for five minutes. And that creates the lump.
Heather: I still don’t understand the lump?
Izzy: Mom, you look at a Madeleine and there’s a lump.
Heather: Ok, fine. Back to Kir:
Izzy: At a dinner party he puts the steaming hot madeleines into a basket and sprinkles them with powdered sugar, and everyone says, “oooooh, they’re madeleines, and they’re really hot!” – Oh! And he makes the basket! I can show you!
Heather: So which do you love more, madeleines or macarons?
Izzy: I think I like them both the same. I think there is the simplicity of the madeleine, and yet it’s so delicious. And the macarons is all about the pretty elegance, and you just feel special when you bit into them. And, they’re amazing.
