I have a new baking obsession: french macarons. (Think mini-moonpie, but crunchier - and much more complicated.) A few weeks ago my brother-in-law informed me that, "macarons are the new cupcake." He read about them in a magazine somewhere, so of course I was intrigued. Over the Christmas break, I Googled all kinds of information on these adorable, fabulously-colored, sandwich-like cookies. And I desperately wanted to bake them. But in the City of Wichita, with a population of 350,000, do you think I could find the almond flour that all the recipes call for? Nope. Nada. Zilch. WTF?I think I may have finally tracked some down at the Whole Foods on Central, but in the mean time, I really wanted to try and make these pint-sized, party pastries. So I used my Kansas Sugar Cookie recipe and my buttercream icing recipe, and made my version of a french macaron: Sandywiches.
They're good, they're cute, but they're TOO sweet. (...yes, you heard me say it, TOO SWEET, even for me.) But now that I know where to get that elusive almond flour, you can be sure I'm going to make another attempt. Stay tuned.
