You say Macaron, I say yum!

I can't imagine a better souvenir to bring someone back from Paris than Pierre Herme macarons. And I was the lucky recipient of 6 of these tasty treats last month when my sister thoughtfully brought them back from her anniversary trip. Congrats on your 20th wedding anniversary Michelle and Stewart!

These cookies really did live up to their hype and price. Even after a few days trip to get to me, they were still everything you would expect these cookies to be. While initially skeptical, Ishapan proved to be my favourite followed closely by the salted caramel. I even liked the mint and that's not normally a flavour that I enjoy.

The Daring Bakers were in sync with me this month and the challenge was none other than the macaron. The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

I have made macarons in the past so luckily I've gotten my failures out of the way. The batch that was overbeaten and came out as flat disks, the batch that stuck to the parchment paper, the batch that cracked...

Here's a picture of the eventual success. And don't think the failures went to waste. I crumbled up those attempts, froze them and pulled them out finally to use as filling in brownie mousse cakes. Thanks to Ami for a great challenge.