little chocolate bombs

i've been trying to produce a nice chocolate french macaron and its been tricky. i initially attempted a recipe from my school text book, but although the taste was good the cookies were in poor form. so i did some online research and found david lebovitz had a promising recipe. he admits to having equal difficulty making chocolate macarons, which while questioning some french chefs was told are the most temperamental. in the final variation of his recipe he recommends baking the cookies as soon as there piped. this practice is contradicting to what i was taught and of most formulas i've read. typically you let the macarons rest till the outside has formed a shell that is dry to the touch. the forming of this shell appears to help the little guys create their distinctive foot.

i let mine rest a few hours to develop the shell, which appeared to work out just fine, but as they came from the oven the desirable smooth caps deformed. i'm not sure what caused this, but i decided to remedy the look by dressing them up in cookie makeup (tempered chocolate). the extra chocolate in addition to the ganache filling turned the macarons into some potent bites. later that evening my friends cleared the lot of them from the kitchen with exclamations and moans of appreciation, so a success after all.

in an attempt to make my images of food a bit more dynamic i've decided to commit to taking shots in more interesting locations. what macarons and bonsai trees have in common i can't say, but its better then looking at another yearbook photo of food in front of a kitchen table backdrop.