Abbie and I attempted to cook macarons yesterday. I had been held up in the shed for hours, working on a thing. She would come up every so often and ask me, ”Now? Are you ready now?”
“Not yet,” I would say, “Soon.”
By 5 PM she was done waiting and pulled me into the kitchen.
Curse you YouTube! You make it all look so easy. Baking is like brain surgery, and baking macarons is like taking out a tumor over the pituitary. It's three simple steps that we quickly ran rip shod all over.
It started well enough. The happy YouTube people were patient and clear. I made the first decent meringue of my life. Got those peaks standing up, son! But my victory was short-lived.
The next step, add dry to wet. Fold and fold until you can figure eight the batter. How much sugar did I use? Way too much.
All dry ingredients together, except for granulated sugar. That is just for the egg whites. Now you tell me. I had used double what I needed.
"So these are going to be really sweet."
Abbie’s face lit up! Nothing wrong with that.
Now, the disaster. Piping batter onto parchment takes a steady hand and experience. It also takes the right piping tip on your bag. I had none of these things. Abbie was furious over the malformed blobs I produced. Like she could do better!
The situation devolved from there. Abbie yelling and calling me names. Me dishing it back as hard as she delt it. She is 8. I am 44.
“You don’t like these, fine, they are probably going to taste crappy anyway!”
“They are going to taste crappy because you put in too much sugar!”
She was right, but I was.out of patience. Messing up 8 more dishes to make the buttercream icing wasn't going to fix anything.
“‘No icing? The whole point is icing!“ Abbie protested.
She threw something at me and stormed off. I tossed the pans in the oven. Cookies are cookies after all. I could hear her sulking. Let her sulk.
20 minutes later the abominations emerged from hell. Liver shaped and glossy on top. We had no food coloring, so, they had the shade of dried feces. "Come try these," I called out. Abbie and the perpetually sweet-toothed Cameron approached the tray as if it would spray them with poison.
A few crunches later, Abbie admitted they weren’t too bad.
She doesn’t know how angry I was at them. The YouTube people, who lied to me. Who giggled throughout the entire process. Not once calling anyone names or throwing projectiles. They seemed so smug and sure, and confident. Everything I mistrust.
FIGHT EVIL
Sam Drog
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