My Chat with Natalie from MacaronsByNatalie.com
It all started on Instagram. Each week, Natalie would post about the macarons she made. From there, people saw her beautiful macarons and wanted to buy them. She started getting paid for her macarons and made them for children’s birthdays, baby showers, and other special events.
I was so excited to speak with Natalie. Her blog Love and Macarons inspired me to create delicious macarons, wrote a book, “French Macarons for Beginners,” and she is teaching us her secrets on YouTube at Macarons by Natalie. Here, I spoke with Natalie all about macarons.
I don’t like my macarons too sweet. That’s why I make my own buttercream.
In your blog Love and Macarons, you talk about the trials and tribulations you went through to get macarons you were happy with. What makes you the angriest? A hollow macaron, bad almond flour, or a lying oven? All of them make me angry [laughs]. I would say that the bad almond flour is the worst because you spent the money and there is no way of fixing it. I bought 3 almond flour boxes, 25 lbs each, and they all made my macarons come out with oil spots, big feet, and fragile tops. If you press your finger on top of the macaron, it just sinks down. I tried reaching out to the company I bought the flour from to get a refund, but they didn’t respond. So I think that one is the worst because you can’t do anything about it. At least with the hollow macarons and a lying oven, you can fix the meringue method and adjust the temperature of the oven.
Before you had your own business, you wrote in your blog about different macarons shops you have tried that disappointed you in the past. Can you describe what the shops could have done to improve their macarons? I’ve tried macarons from many places such as LA, Paris, New York, and my hometown of Oakland. The ones in Oakland I didn’t like because I tried one that was pistachio flavored, but it was not green. It was white with specks from the almond flour. It didn’t taste like pistachio and it had big feet. They could do better by adding ground pistachios into the shell, filling, or on top because it just tasted like sugar. The ones in LA and Paris were too sweet due to the heavy use of white chocolate ganache, so I suggest they use some buttercream instead. However, I think ganache is the traditional French filling, but for me, I don’t like my macarons too sweet. That’s why I make my own buttercream. I like my buttercream the best because it’s not too sweet. The ones in New York I tried were the worst! They were hollow inside when you bit into it, it would explode and the filling tasted like straight butter when it was supposed to be champagne flavored. They need to redo their whole recipe, I’m not even sure how they make money [laughs].
Check out Natalie’s buttercream recipe in this video at timestamp 9:47.
You have expressed that you’ll never go back to making macarons with French meringue. Can you give some tips on how to make an excellent tant pour tant and Italian meringue? [Angela struggled saying, “tant pour tant”]
Yeah, I don’t know how to say that either [referring to tant pour tant] [laughs]
I’ll never go back to the French meringue method because it’s too unreliable especially in large batches for orders. I like the Italian meringue method because it’s more stable, but it is a bit more difficult to master. To make an excellent Italian meringue macaron, make sure you put just enough egg whites for the dry mixture, or else they will not dry and they will crack. Don’t wait too long to add in the sugar syrup or your egg whites will deflate. Also, make sure that you beat the Italian meringue until it has stiff, but droopy peaks instead of under beating (dripping peaks) or overbeating (too stiff and thick).
Can you give us some insight into what it is like to bake macarons for yourself versus running a small business? Baking for yourself is simple because when you mess up, you just eat it [laughs]. You get to be creative and experiment and just give them to your friends and family. But once you start getting good, people will notice and want to buy from you, that’s what happened with my business. I posted mine on Instagram and then people wanted to buy them. But then you have to worry about the custom orders, not getting it exactly right or if you’re baking and the macarons crack then you will have to stay up 3 more hours to bake another batch because it’s due in the morning. That’s what happened to me. So there’s a lot more pressure but it’s all worth it when you get people raving about your macarons at their event.
You can check out Natalie’s latest video below:
