Hi There

I've always enjoyed baking, but I wouldn't say it's something I'm particularly great at baking.

I can make a good batch of cupcakes but never completely from scratch.

I've made a few cakes but nothing spectacular.

The reason I bring this up is because recently I decided to tackle one of the most difficult desserts: French macarons.

If you don't know what French macarons are, they are two little round cookies with a type of frosting in the middle.

They have a slightly crunchy exterior with a soft interior.

I'm not exactly sure what made me want to make them on a Tuesday afternoon, but I was determined.

When I decided to tackle this dessert, I wasn't really sure what made them so difficult. It just looks like batter piped onto a baking sheet.

I later learned this is not the case.

I spent a few hours researching what I needed to tackle this, learning I don't own a food processor or a whisk, but I do own a hand mixer.

I learned that I needed a scale for accurate measurement – which I also didn't own.

The ingredients for the cookies themselves are quite simple: eggs, powdered sugar, granulated sugar, vanilla extract, cream of tartar and almond flour.

After a trip to three different grocery stores I had all my ingredients and addition items I didn't previously own – I forgot the whisk and refused to buy the food processor.

I found a great video online coupled with a recipe that walked through each step and explained what to do and what not to do.

Forewarning: My kitchen was a disaster after attempting this.

I'll spare you the details of each step, but the most difficult part for me was making the meringue. Meringue is a fluffy dessert made from whipping egg whites, sugar and occasionally an acidic ingredient such as cream of tartar.

In a normal meringue, you have to whip it until it has soft peaks. But this recipe requires you to mix it until there are hard peaks, or until it has the consistency of marshmallow fluff.

After whipping for who knows how long, a good sign that the mixture is done when you can turn it upside down and nothing falls out.

The second hardest step in the process is mixing the wet and dry ingredients. There is a perfect point in which you must stop folding and start piping. Some recipes describe it as looking like flowing lava.

Once I completed the rest of the steps, piped out my little cookies and let them set out to dry, I thought I was doing a great job – until I learned my oven runs hots.

After three different attempts and two different flavors, I learned that these are very touchy cookies.

The first batch was overcooked. The second batch had perfect cookies, but the filling wasn't quite right. The third batch was delicious, but the cookies weren't quite right.

Overall, it was a fun experience, and I'm looking forward to making more in the future.

If you are interested in attempting to make these yourself, I recommend checking out the recipe I used and watch the tutorial video at preppykitchen.com/french-macarons/

Let me know if you have any additional comments or pieces of advice at Caitlin.Yamada@SoutheastIowaUnion.com