Macaron Mania: The Recipes of the World’s Top Pastry Chefs

When I first wrote a recipe tutorial for French macarons in 2012, I couldn’t have imagined that, even to this day, it would be the most popular post on IronWhisk. Back then, the macaron craze was just gaining steam. Today, the almond-meringue cookies, which sandwich a ganache or jam filling, are ubiquitous.

Macaron Mania: Testing the Recipes of the World's Top Pastry Chefs

The macaron’s popularity means a plethora of surprisingly different recipes are available to play with. What, then, is the best way to make this famous cookie? Over the past few weeks, I have made it my mission to find out. After getting my hands on the formerly secret recipes of the world’s top pastry chefs, and baking dozens of batches and hundreds of macarons, my side-by-side tests and surveys provide the much-needed answers.

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Strawberry, Almond, and Rose Tart

A few weeks ago, while browsing the websites of Paris’s top pâtisseries, I spotted Hugo et Victor’s Tarte Fraise (strawberry tart). The pastry’s strawberry-red shell complemented its meticulously arranged strawberry slices superbly—I was quite inspired by its colour.

Strawberry, almond, and rose tart with toasted meringue

This weekend, I had a chance to experiment with adding food colouring to tart dough. The results were impressive. The trick is to use a food colouring that does not lose its pigment when baked.

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