Cherry blossom... All my blessings to people of Japan

Spring is definitely here in Paris. I hope Japan will soon overcome this difficult time and that Nature will now have mercy so the people can start a new life.

First batches of macarons

I've never understood why macarons are so trendy these days. Don't get me wrong, I do like them (Hévin's are my favorites) but I've never been inspired to try to make them until I found  this "carrot cake macaron" recipe from Tartelette. When I was reading her post, I was already imagining the carrot cake baking smell and the taste all wrapped up in a tiny bite size macaron. So I got all excited and went shopping for ingredients to bake my first macarons. The truth is I'm not a genius so the first ones came out looking more like whoopie pies than macarons. I guess I should have started with a basic recipe... But the taste of carrot cake was definitely in there!

They were quite photogenic too AND gluten free!

I was surprised how little time it takes for the preparation. So, as I'm kind of lazy, this encourages me to make other trials. I've gone back to a more basic recipe in order to understand the meringue correctly first, yet I couldn't help adding some raspberry in the ganache. I'm happy because these second ones are looking more like macarons. There's still a lot to experiment...

Second batch, almost there...