The first baking experiment I ever had as a kid was when I made a Mango Cake with a Mango Buttercream Frosting when I was 14. My nanny helped me bring all the ingredients together, but for the most part, I did all the creaming and mixing and baking by myself. It was somewhat of a major undertaking, because making buttercream in the tropical heat isn’t exactly a walk in the park. The cake wasn’t perfect, but it was my first, and for that it will always be special. After I decorated it, I stepped back with eyes wide as saucers, and said, “Wow, I made that!” And my nanny piped up and said something I will always remember, “You always could, you just didn’t know it!”
I remembered this story as I learned to make macarons last night. I attended a two-and-a-half hour baking class with Clémence Gossett of Gourmandise Desserts (at Platine Bakery in Culver City), where I learned to make these legendary little gems. They’re legendary because there’s so much myth surrounding how they’re made. And culinary myths are the worst kind. They’re spun and re-spun in kitchens, on blogs and in bakeries that they take on a life of their own. They’re shrouded in mystery and scare away the most well-intentioned home bakers; they scared this home baker for a long time.
Clémence is the kind of generous teacher who doesn’t just disseminate information. Her class wasn’t simply, “This is a pot, you put these things in it, cook it for this long and serve it this way.” We also learned about ingredients and where they come from, and being a rabid food history fan, I appreciated the lessons very much. She told us about the interesting origins of chocolate, how vanilla beans are cultivated, all the little back stories of the materials we would use to cook. And once she started telling the class about how sugar is made, I felt right at home. I grew up around sugar all my life (read this post about my childhood on a sugar mill in the Philippines). I loved hearing the story of my favorite ingredient told by someone who understood it well. Clémence was all about debunking the Great Macaron Myth, and it was refreshing to hear that my fear of these tiny things was actually quite irrational.
I’d like to think that the class was like smelling salts to the slumbering baker in me. It made me recall the pure, unadulterated joy I feel when I bake. I honestly don’t know why I forget sometimes. I guess life has a sneaky way of distracting you. For me, there’s a day job to do, things to sew, dance classes to try and get back to, blog posts to write, trips to take and people to love. But more and more, I’ve come to realize that among all my creative pursuits, I’m most confident with my baking. In my other lives, I’m still very much the hesitant quilter/crafter, the shy dancer, the tentative writer, though I try to learn as much as I can every day to become more competent in these arts. But in the kitchen, with a whisk in my hand, I’m at my most courageous. I’m most myself when I’m lost among the sounds of a busy kitchen: the steady whirring of my mixer, the cracking of eggs against the lip of a ceramic bowl, the pinging of pistachios as they’re poured into a steel bowl for shelling. These make up the soundtrack of my bravest days.
And so, if you ask: “Are macarons difficult to make?” The answer is: they are and they aren’t. They’re challenging because of the techniques you DO have to learn: how to gauge the stiffness of your meringue, how to fold your almond flour into the mixture without deflating the eggwhites, how to tell when you’ve folded enough. But at the same time, they’re easy…because I was able to make them. And I didn’t undergo training through a rigorous pastry program in culinary school. I’m just someone who loves to bake, who went to a baking class that happened to be close to my house, who watched, and listened, and learned. And I’m willing to practice. 
The first thing that popped into my head when I tasted the Vanilla Macarons with Salted Caramel that we made was this: “Kanamit!” This is the word for “delicious” in Ilonggo, the dialect I grew up with. It had this crunchy shell that gave way to a delicately sweet, chewy center, that led you by your tastebuds to a rich, toe-curling caramel.
It was heavenly. And how interesting, I thought to myself, that the language of flavor in my head isn’t in English! It’s in the words of my childhood. Maybe this goes back to that very first cake, in that hot kitchen in the province, and the realization that I even as a little girl, I was capable of making delicious things with my own hands if I only set my mind to it. That memory echoes to the big girl I am today, and tells me that I CAN make macarons no matter how mysterious they may be. I could make these mouthwatering, divine treats all this time—I just hadn’t known it. 
I sometimes forget how much I love baking, and then I take a class like last night and feel like going home, baking all night and not minding one bit if I fell asleep in my apron with flour on my nose and powdered sugar in my hair.
Here’s to more adventures in flour, sugar and egg whites!
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If you’re interested in exploring the world of dessert-making through a delicious class with Clémence, her website HERE, lists all her upcoming classes. If you sign up for her newsletter, she sends you recipes, too.
J. | 
07 12th, 2010| 
