Cooking With Friends

What's more fun than cooking? Cooking with friends, and that's exactly what I did one gloomy morning in March. Several of us had gone to an event arranged by Edna, at a French bakery in Escondido. At that event we saw a demonstration by the chef of how to make French baguettes and French Macarons. French macarons are little sandwich like cookies, where the cookie part is an almond meringue and the filling can be anything. We thought we might like to try making the French macarons at home, so Elaine, Debiie, Katie and me got together to make these delectable little treats.

There are many recipes for French macarons, and Debbie was in charge of determining which recipe to use. I was in charge of purchasing the ingredients, Elaine volunteered her beautiful kitchen (and made us coffee and wonderful coffee cake) to do the cooking, and Katie turned out to be the master of piping the cookies on to the baking sheet. We all contributed to the successes, and failures, of this project.

Our first batch was not what we hoped for. In retrospect, we did not beat the egg whites enough. They must be STIFF. The cookies were tasty, but flat and too chewy. We had to throw most of them away. But by the second batch we had the technique down pat. The cookies were perfect. Katie was in charge of piping the cookies onto the baking sheets, and she did a fantastic job. In between preparing the cookies we made chocolate ganache for one filling, and used a store bought lemon curd for the other filling.

Cooking with friends is such fun. We laughed a lot, so much in fact that we mismeasured the first batch of almond meal and confectioners' sugar mixture, but luckily Katie, with her excellent math skills, figured it all out for us. Along the way Debbie taught us some teaching techniques she had picked up in culinary school. Although she got her only B in cooking school (89%)in baking, she was a great teacher. I learned how to cut parchment paper. Who knew that a professional chef never uses scissors? She taught us folding techniques and how to achieve perfect egg whites.

In between cooking, we noshed on Elaine's homemade coffee cake, then later, Debbie's sausage roll. Yum. In the end, we each took home about 13 cookies, much less than the 2 dozen we had planned on. That's because of our failure on batch number one. Debbie and I had both told several people we would give them samples of what we made, so in the end I only had 2 cookies left for myself. A lot of work for just a few cookies. Next time, if there is a next time, things will be easier and we won't make mistakes. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to our next get together, where Elaine and her husband Bob, will introduce us to "Testa Turke." (Turks hat). Cooking with friends makes a wonderful, social morning. It's just another way to get together with friends over coffee and food.

There are many recipes for French macarons on the internet, and I really cannot recommend one. We added a pinch of cream of tartar to our recipe, and also a drop of almond extract. Make sure you whip your egg whites to stiff, and your batter will be fine. Enjoy a morning cooking with friends. It's great fun.