Third Time's a Charm

I have what one might call, an obsession, with macarons.  Ever since I tried them last year, I've felt the need to taste-test them every time I see them somewhere.  Originally, I was convinced they couldn't be that difficult.  There were only about 4 ingredients to them.  How could they be so delicious and so difficult?  I was very, very wrong.  It turns out the most difficult recipes are the ones that only have a few ingredients.  Test recipes 1 and 2 were epic fails.  Both had decent flavor but texture and look were just terrible to say the least.  

So I've been leaving the darn things to the professionals for the last few months.  My fragile ego couldn't take the pressure.  But I had a dream about them last night, and woke up with a renewed desire to nail the little pieces of heaven.  I've been hoarding real almond meal (as opposed to the stuff I made that caused the epic fails) for a few weeks so I had all the ingredients to give them a go.  After a few minutes of stress, and angst over whether or not they'd turn out - I'm ready to admit, the third time's a charm.  They were AWESOME - even if I do say so myself.  They looked like macarons.  They felt like macarons.  And most importantly they tasted like macarons!  I'm also willing to concede that even though the recipe for these coconut and chocolate macarons came from a cookbook that spelled the word "macaron" incorrectly on every single page (including the cover), it's a pretty perfect recipe that I will be treasuring for a very long time!

PS: On top of nailing the macarons, these are probably the best food pics I've ever taken. So you could say today was a banner day in the kitchen for Kristen.  Though I'm sure this new found cockiness will come back to bite me in the butt sometime soon...