French bakery windows glow with towering pyramids of candy-colored macarons, but the double-decker pastry that’s put France back on the cookie map, after a madeleine lull, was born in Italy.  Catherine de Medici apparently introduced French courts to her hometown favorite when she married the Duc of Orleans in 1533.  (afterward, Henry II).  The French apparently never looked back, and the Italians, dipping another zaleti in the prosecco, seemed ok letting macarons go.  (Macarons and macaroni share the same etymological root, meaning “fine dough.”)

Shauna Hinchen-Joyal and Linda Currier can attest to the magic of macarons, but when they describe the process, one wonders how on earth the pastry survived five hundred years of uneven oven temperatures and humidity.

Hinchen-Joyal and Currier own and operate Tangerine, makers of specialty cakes and fine pastries, in Hamilton, MA.

“It took us about a year to get them (macarons) right,” Hinchen-Joyal told me.  The egg whites have to “age” in the refrigerator.  Exposed to air, the egg white strands “strengthen” and some of the water in them evaporates.  Macarons need a very fine grind of nuts and sugar.  You have to use very good confectionary sugar because the cheap stuff has too much corn starch.

Then there’s the mixing of the nuts and sugar mixture into the egg whites, a process which has a name, “macronage.”

Over-mixed the macronage, the dough runs, and you have flat macarons. Too stiff a macronage, the dough sits up too high, and there’s no gleam to the macarons' surface.

The oven is the next trial:  air, heat, humidity.  Hinchen-Joyal watches carefully, sometimes opening the oven door to let air flow in while the macarons bake.

“We make lots of these for weddings and events, and we can’t afford to screw up.”  But, she adds, “we still get a bust batch from time to time.”  Macarons are that mercurial.

Tangerine sources as locally as possible:  Taza Chocolate, Privateer Rum, and Cabot Butter for example.  They’re facebook page today boasts some gorgeous arauracana eggs.

Hinchen-Joyal says the flavors are the fun part; they’re inventing new ones everyday:  coconut with sea-salt caramel and ginger,  Meyer lemon with chocolate ganache, Taza Chocolate nibs with chai.

I sampled a box; the quality - the ratio of crack to soft center, of mildly flavored cookie to intensely flavored filling, their freshness, and the gorgeous springtime palette, all said “Ces macarons sont parfait!”   I say save your airfare and buy local macarons.

pssst:  Passover begins April 6; Easter is April 8th.  Macarons have no leavening.

 

Tangerine

P.O. Box 472

Wenham, MA 01984

978.223.8712 tangerinepastry@gmail.com