SABATTUS, Maine — Myler Makes Macarons. It has a nice ring to it.
Easily one of the most iconic French sweets, the macaron may also be one of the most incorrectly pronounced sweets. The only proof I have simply comes from talking with family and friends. Do you pronounce it with "-ooon" or "-uhhn" at the end? We attempt to figure it out while making the notoriously finicky cookies.
There's a lot of people that worked behind the scenes to make "Myler Makes It: Parisian Style" possible, and one of those people (Hello, Karen!) had seen a lot of chatter online about Marvelous Macarons in Sabattus. She heard a story about a bakery that was for sale, but the former owner apparently refused to sell it to someone who was unhappy. Apparently, the new owner has a great personality. She's a ray of sunshine, and everyone loves her. I knew we had to meet to even out my notoriously miserable disposition (*wink wink*).
Her name is Jenna Roberts, and I'll spare you the anticipation: She lived up to the hype. This may have been the most fun I've ever had during a Myler Makes It shoot. After we finished recording and got in the car, I had to ask NEWS CENTER Maine videographer Jacob if we had any usable footage because it truly felt like I was goofing around in the kitchen with my best friend.
How do you make macarons?
Jenna said there are a few different methods: French, Swiss, and Italian. She uses the Italian method, which means she starts by beating egg whites into a meringue while sugar-water comes to a simmer on the stove.
Here's where you begin to realize why the macarons are so finicky.
Jenna said conditions must be perfect. The air can't be too humid. It can't be too hot or too cold. And each step has specific unquantifiable cook times that can't go into a recipe. When is the sugar-water done simmering on the stove? She knows by the look of the puffs of smoke coming out of the pot from across the kitchen. How do you put that into a recipe? You tell me.
You stream that hot sugary liquid into the meringue while the mixer runs. You have to be careful to not hit the bowl or it will cool but also not hit the whisk or it will fly. It's all about precision.
In the meantime, we took almond flour and powdered sugar and pulverized it to make sure it's extremely fine. Sift that into a bowl, make a well, add unbeaten egg whites into that pool, then make a paste.
Now is when we fold in the meringue and sugar-syrup mixture in an oddly specific way that I can quite describe with words, but once you can get the perfect "ribbons" of batter (again, she just knew what to look for, but I couldn't tell you how one learns how to do this) you put it into a piping bag, and we're ready to pipe!
One by one you make little circles, and it's a lot easier than it looks. Mine were — eclectic.
These have to sit and dry at room temp for a variable amount of time, depending on the weather, until they have a skin and then they're baked. She uses a specific oven because it is the only way she can get them to turn out. Not a fancy convection oven. Not a walk-in oven. She has the same oven she's had for years because it's the only one she can get to work. I asked what she will do if that oven ever breaks, and she jokingly said, "I guess I'll be done making macarons!"
Once they cooled down, we filled them with Italian buttercream. Yum! Here's something else that makes these a little different. She had homemade fruit fillings that you could put into the center of the filling to create a filled macaron! It was a first for me, but the lemon was my favorite. It brought a nice tartness that balanced out the sweetness of the cookie.
Those macarons were absolutely amazing. They couldn't have been any better — perfection! They were light and chewy but yet slightly crisp on the outside like they're supposed to be. Ugh, absolute perfection! I ate WAY too many and have no regrets.
And how do you pronounce it? Jenna said she pronounces it as ma-ca-rOOn (like "spoon") and not ma-ca-rUHn (like "run"). "We're in Maine—I say 'macaroon.'" (Please don't cancel us, 8-year-olds.)
Thank you so much to Jenna Roberts of Marvelous Macarons for showing me the art of the macaron! And thank you so much for being a great human. Jenna truly lived up to all the hype. She was a great person to be around, and we genuinely laughed the entire time. Honestly, I don't know how we got the segment filmed since we had so much fun, but that's why I think it's so much entertaining to watch. Bon appetit!