Macarons and Becoming Martha: My Visit to Les Petits Bisous!

On a late Wednesday night, at the end of Washington Street, sits an adorable little pink shop that embodies whimsical femininity. Fairy lights and fluffy pompons adorn the windows, a hint of the delicate treats that are housed inside. Between the Hallmark worthy Christmas-scape on the city streets, my totes adorable emerald green J-Crew coat, and the French pastries I see in the window- I must confess I feel a little bit like “Emily in Paris” as I approach the door and knock.

Tonight, I am going to Les Petits Bisous! to learn the art of macarons from owner and baker extraordinaire Emily Yeatman. Alas, “Emily in Paris” I am not. My first question is how to correctly pronounce the shop name. I literally spent every Monday of my freshman year in detention due to my inability to pass a French Test and it would be tres mortifiant (Sorry Madame Barrett…definitely had to google that) if I butchered it on my first vlog. After teaching me how to correctly pronounce the name, and me silently deciding to continue calling it the macaron shop like the rest of Havre de Grace, Emily laughed and said she doesn’t care what anyone calls it as long as they love eating her macarons…phew!

The first thing that comes to mind when you think of Les Petits Bisous! is Emily herself. Browsing her five-star Google, Facebook, and Yelp reviews I saw consistent references to “the lovely owner.” She is warm, playful, and has an amazing knack for always being camera ready- I will be back to learn that next.

Emily began her career as an English teacher of all things and through a series of chance encounters purchased Les Petits Bisous! Building on a foundation of traditional French flavors such as salted caramel and vanilla, Emily began to incorporate her own creative twist on the existing repertoire and introduce an American flair with crowd friendly flavors such as maple bacon, cotton candy, and s’mores. Emily often solicits her customer’s feedback on what seasonal flavors they would like to see. You just have to take a look at the lines down the sidewalk on a Friday or Saturday morning to know that these flavor profiles combined with her close relationships with her customers keep them coming back for more.

Personally, my favorite part of Les Petits Bisous! is her innovative presentation. From “Pistachi-Yoda” to the intricately gold leafed and hand painted mermaid macrons, Emily’s attention to detail and craftsmanship set her a-part and at times, her products seem almost too pretty to eat…almost!

 I am a realist and I know that I will never be able to bake macarons that are as attractive as Emily’s, but I am hoping that with a few tips they will at least be edible.

Emily’s first rule of macaron baking is that you have to be in a good mood. She explains that she has tried to bake when she wasn’t feeling herself and she could taste it in the finished product. Now if she is having a bad day, she will often visit some of her favorite local stores such as Taste of Teal Antler or Found Vintage to cheer herself up.

Next, she stressed the importance of patience. Having researched some macaron recipes before arriving at her bakery, seeing the dehumidifier in the back, and watching how many times she had to slam the piped pans of macaron batter on the counter to remove the air bubbles- Emily isn’t exaggerating. There are multiple steps that have to be followed, with each one being equally as important as the last.  

Finally, Emily recommended a kitchen scale. In addition to precise temperatures and humidity levels, macarons require the exact amount of ingredients in order to obtain the revered “feet” or lip on the bottom of the individual cookies.  

I left the bakery that night feeling optimistic. Sure, macarons are a notoriously hard confection to make but how hard could it really be? I knew that following Emily’s three tips was going to be a little counterintuitive for me. For starters, I never bake when I am happy. I learned in my early twenties that I did my best baking- late at night- fueled by a box of cheap wine, an Adele album, and the angst of whatever “relationship” had imploded that month. I also can’t claim to have ever been known for my patience or my precision, but I was willing to throw out my copy of “Salted With Tears: The Spinster’s Guide to Baking” and my laissez-faire approach to measuring in my quest for the perfect macaron.

That weekend, my friend Kim joined me to bake macarons.  To guarantee our good moods, we decided to get into the Christmas spirit…starting with spirits- Fig Vodka Mules! (Old habits die hard I guess). Taking it a step further, we blared Christmas music and donned light up jingle bell elf slippers and Santa hats. It was time to bake.

Now- I have to tell you that when I initially conceived the idea of this post, I planned on including detailed instructions of how to make macarons at home. There would be artistically arranged ingredients and Kim and I would appear in flattering “candid” baking shots with great lighting and a pristine kitchen. I imagined myself posting it to the website and silently congratulating myself on becoming HdG’s next Martha Stewart.

What I discovered is that I am not Martha Stewart or even her slightly less attractive underachieving half- sister for that matter. I am Taren, the forgetful baker who ran out of powdered sugar, so we had to run out half way through the recipe to buy it. I am also Taren, the woman that was too lazy to put the flour in the food processor as the recipe directed and assumed that sieving it two more times would be a worthy substitute (the lumps in the batter said otherwise). I am not the one responsible for the breaking half of the macarons as we peeled them off the silicon sheet (that was all Kim) however; I do take full responsibility for accidentally dumping half a bag of powdered sugar into the mascarpone filling and attempting to mask the taste with cake batter flavoring.

Four hours, seven eggs, and a trash can full of macarons later- we created a hybrid desert that had the flavor of a macaron and texture of toffee. After piping in the overly sweetened filling, we rolled the macarons in sprinkles to conceal the fact that our circular disks were in fact irregularly shaped blobs with partially burnt edges.

Determined to get my Insta-worthy pictures, I selected the best-looking ones and artfully arranged them on a platter. Once they were heavily filtered in Lightroom, they looked half way decent! Just don’t eat them.

After this whole experience, I have decided to leave the macarons to the pros and stick with my coping mechanism of baking cupcakes and cookies. I have also abandoned my dreams of Martha like perfection and decided to present you with the reality behind many of those pins and posts we all covet.  If you need me next weekend, I will be in line with the other twenty people waiting patiently for Emily’s delicious macarons!

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To find out more about Les Petits Bisous!, visit their Facebook page by clicking on the link below.

https://www.facebook.com/LesPetitsBisous

To make your own macarons, try this recipe below- just don’t forget to measure!