Coming Soon: ChefSteps' Premium French Macaron Class

Dear ChefSteps Community Members,

We want you to be among the first to know about some changes coming to ChefSteps.

ChefSteps has always been a collaboration between our team and a community of curious cooks who share our interest in the hows and whys of cooking. Feedback from the ChefSteps community is what drives us to keep improving. We've learned that many of you enjoy ChefSteps because our videos are entertaining, the recipes and techniques are inspiring, and the explanations are helpful. And when we don't get something quite right, your questions help us fix it.

Some of you have indicated that you would like to learn new kitchen skills or master challenging recipes through a more structured class, with guidance from our team. So we're going to try that. Beginning in late October, we will offer a paid class on preparing French macarons. Daily releases of recipes and techniques will continue to be free-to-learn.

Charging for in-depth classes, which are chosen by community voting, allows us to focus on creating content that benefits you, rather than sponsors and advertisers. It also helps us prioritize support for members who prefer more guidance.

If you would like to be notified when the French macaron course becomes available, you can sign up here: http://chefsteps.com/courses/french-macarons

Thank you for your continued participation in the ChefSteps community. We look forward to hearing your feedback, as always.

Sincerely,

Chris, Grant, Ryan and the rest of the team at ChefSteps

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Samuel_68313

Can't wait, I am addicted to them and was wondering when the course would be ready!

Approximately how much will it cost?

Chris_Young_80640

@SamuelG — We're still working through pricing decisions. The course will be launching in the second half of October. Some of you may notice that we've been a bit quiet on the forum lately, and in large part that is because we've been working on making this course great.

pgcath

I am _hugely_ excited for this to happen. Thanks, ChefSteps!

grant

I really can not wait for everyone to try out the course. The team here at CS has put a lot of work into it and I am looking forward to all of your feedback, experiences and photos!

pgcath

I still say, related to my confusion earlier, that you all could command a premium for like 1 cooking night a month. People would make pilgrimages.

Rich_McDonough_67546

I would have no qualms about paying for specialist courses with more in-depth instruction. However, for macarons I will have to take a rain check. Not because I wouldn't love to do them but because I live in Ghana where the humidity is often 90% and even with air-conditioning I think it would be near impossible to get it right plus ground almonds would cost me about $100 a pound locally (yes, you read that correctly...) so it's too expensive to screw up! That said, maybe when I am next in the US or UK on a break...

Soteavee_19309

Count me in.

Samuel_68313

Just went over the entire course.

Holy shit! Seriously impressive. I want to order one or two things (mostly powdered food colouring and new piping bags) before I get started, though I was happy that I had basically everything necessary to hand, but I cannot wait to get making some.

Really top notch stuff.

Rich_McDonough_67546

Ha ha! Change of plan. Count me in! Looks AMAZING! Thanks team!

Chris_Young_80640

Thanks everyone. We're glad to see such positive feedback. And, if you haven't done so yet, cast your vote for the next class we'll produce:

http://www.chefsteps.com/polls/vote-for-new-courses

kevinngsi_jie_81749

Hi, I recently bought the package and I must say that I'm actually not very happy with the course material. I guess I'm one of those fools who have definitely gave macarons a go, going up to 20 trials and tweaking little variables and seeing how they affected the product, and I was hoping this course would be a bit more informative. Let me explain:

Firstly, there are many recipes online for macarons. I have tried many, and was hoping for more insight into why different ingredient ratios and recipes work and why others don't, and the science behind them. For example, this blog http://notsohumblepie.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/macarons-101-french-meringue.html included a scatterplot of common macaron recipes and comparing the ratios. I was hoping that the course would include data such as these and a discussion instead of, say, simply presenting a recipe. I was also hoping to see a comparison between different methods, such as the 'french meringue' method without the syrup and the 'italian meringue' method presented here, and perhaps an examination into differences in structure or form in the final macaron. I am sure factors such as ovens also come into play. For example, the website Syrup and Tang has a series of detailed articles on macarons covering such topics (http://www.syrupandtang.com/macarons/) and are quite extensive. I guess I was hoping for more of these.

Also, I was also thinking that the recipes are quite conventional. I was experimenting with other nut flours such as hazelnut and walnut flour and even substituting a proportion of the almond flour in the TPT with other non-nut elements such as sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds, with some degree of success. It's quite useful for infusing other flavours, and wanted to know if there is some proper science behind substitution, such as examining the composition of the substituent and how they compare to almonds in oils/carbohydrates/protein makeup.

Elaborating on the recipes - it would have been nice to see how other creative macarons are made. I have always wondered how Cafe Pouchekine in Paris makes their multicolored macarons - is it simply a matter of blotting one piped blob with another blob of differently colored mixture? Also, do macaron compositions differ if their size or shape changes?

Going on with that, I feel that the theory could also explain a little more specifically about macarons. I mean, while macarons definitely are based on meringues, there is surely something special about it that gives it the distinctive feet and considerably softer texture. I was hoping to get a better understanding on how the macarons work so I could extend the theory to aspects such as why mistakes such as hollow macarons or collapsed feet happen - is it because the batter contains too much air, causing the shell to rise too much before the big air bubbles collapse? More insights into such macaron theory would have been awesome.

I guess one of the reasons why I found it a little disappointing was because I felt the free courses were incredible, and also because there is a wealth of information on macarons freely available. But of course, this is just some honest feedback. Thanks for everything!

Chris_Young_80640

@kevinngsi.jie

First, thank you for the feedback. And we're sorry that you're not totally satisfied with the course. Out intent was to create a course that was geared towards making those with less experience successful, and without overwhelming them with many of the advanced techniques or variations that someone with your level of experience would desire.

As you point out, there is a lot of great information out there on macarons. And I know that the culinary team will be adding more recipes, with advanced techniques over time. So if there are very specific things you want to see, please ask on the course discussion page within the course (that tends to be the easiest place for us to keep up with what those taking the course want).

Finally, I will try to answer some of your specific science questions in the discussion area.