So my 20th adventure was a bit of a flop, maybe more than a bit. I took a macaroon baking class, and in general I am good in the kitchen, but these macaroons were gross and ugly. They were little the undesirable of the undesirable. Usually, when I make something that is visually unappealing, I can comfort myself that it still tastes good. That was not the case with these macaroons. I cannot begin to describe how gross they tasted. I don’t know if we somehow messed up the batter or if my filling/shell ratio was off, or if I am just not a macaroon person.
The class was at a really neat cooking school in downtown Louisville. The school was really well-organized and clean and nice – and it seems like they are doing a really good business. But for me, the class was a bust, but it was not the fault of the cooking school. I think my first problem may have been going alone to the class – everyone was paired up except for me and one random lady insisted on telling me about how all of her daughters are getting married before they are too old … the oldest I think was 25. SMH.
Any way, once class got started, my partner and I somehow managed to flop our dough. It was literally like trying to mix a bowl full of clay – I still have no clue what we did wrong. Per our instructor, macaroons are extremely temperamental and can bomb for no good reason. Well, bomb ours did. We couldn’t even pipe the dough onto the cookie sheets – it was too thick and we had to squeeze the piping bag so hard that the bag busted open. It was rather disgusting.
Then, once we got the instructor’s dough, we only piped out these tiny little one bite macaroons and I swear I followed the template! Are they supposed to spread? Or did I just pipe them out too small? I honestly do not know. All I know, is that they were tiny little baby macaroons that looked a little awkward and were a weird beige color. If you ever make macaroons, I would reccomend food dye – they are kind of blah without the food coloring. I am told it needs to be gel food coloring, not liquid. Apparently if you use a liquid food coloring, it messes up the chemistry of the dough.
The size of the macaroons led me to the next disasterous component of my macaroons – filling to shell ratio. Because the macroons turned out so small, it was so easy to put too much filling, leading to a weird overly sweat treat. Maybe if the macaroons had been bigger, it would have been easier to get the correct ratio? Honestly, who knows.
I was so excited for this class. I LOVE cooking classes, well at least the one I had done before where everything turned out delicious. Maybe it was because this class wasnt a cooking class but a baking class and baking is just more temperemental? I am just not sure why things bombed, but my macroons bombed and bombed big.
Any way, this year, my goal will be to find another cooking class to try, but I can garuntee it wont be a macroon class! 🙂
Thanks for tuning back in!
Ali
52 Weeks, 52 Adventures 
Win some, lose some! For the record, I think they’re adorable! 😃
LikeLike