Book Review: I ♥ Macarons

I recently discovered macarons and found out, much to my delight that macarons: a) are a delicious, sweet, unique French treat and b) are simply made with egg whites and sugar, which means they are virtually guaranteed to be gluten-free, no matter where you find them!

 I ♥ Macarons by Hisako Ogita (Chronicle Books) has renewed my obsession with perfecting my macaron capabilities.

I actually found the book by chance at Anthropologie whilst looking for a cute yet modest dress.  Didn't find a dress but this tome more than made up for it.  (It's also available at Amazon.)

The book explains every minute detail of successful macaronage including tips and suggestions, troubleshooting and my favorite, what went wrong with crisp, full color photographs.

I'm personally surprised that such an expertly written book could come from a Japanese pastry chef but only because it's halfway around the world from their French origins.  However I guess I shouldn't be too surprised since macarons are a cute dessert and Japan practically has the monopoly on all things kawaii (plus well, macarons are popular in Japan according to Wikipedia!)

One key to successful macaroning that I've found in this book and online is that measuring ingredients is key.  It makes sense because everything needs to be in perfect proportions to get consistent desired results.

I can't wait to try it out!  I've already bought a "spoonula" and I have my eye on this cute food scale.

Cute desserts call for cute supplies.
Personally I found that I have to bide my time since I find that when I start macaroning I get obsessed and can't stop.  I vowed myself to make macarons once a month only from here on out.

Part of that obsession is that I have yet to repeat my one decent batch and have yet to churn out one perfect batch.

Yep I think I definitely need a food scale.