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Erica is occasionally gripped by the idea that she should be able to cook or bake despite all evidence to the contrary. When in this state, she will not settle for something simple, but often attempts something complex and labor-intensive and often enlists my help. During this particular bout of hubris, or insecurity, the two are often intertwined, she decided to make macarons for an outdoor get together with her college friends.

I don’t know why. I don’t like her college friends. She doesn’t even seem to like her college friends. I must point out before I go any further, I use the term “college friends” to describe a group of five or six highly competitive young women I have nothing in common except that they were all friends in college*. And seem to think that this obliges them to a twice yearly ritual of getting together and catching up. And in this case “catching up” refers to bragging about salaries, vacations, future home purchases, and upcoming weddings.

College friends aside, I thought this adventure provided a good opportunity to teach Erica about the amount of patience in planning that goes into any large scale baking or cooking project. She has attempted to make macarons before, and from what I gather we results were not aesthetically perfect, but were quite tasty. Unfortunately, this time she fell victim to the fallacy that learning from her past mistakes meant she was ready to bake to impress. I did not dissuade her from this notion, but simply tried to guide her through the process as best I could.

We began with a very serious planning effort. She was intent on using a hodgepodge of flavorings and ingredients she had around the house and so basic recipes and other ingredient quantities were determined and supplementary ingredients were purchased. We also planned phases for the actual baking and assembly of the final cookies. Her little get together was planned for brunch time on Saturday morning which meant she would have to cook these during the week. Rather than allow her to exhaust and disappoint herself thinking that she could accomplish this all in one evening, we planned for the three separate tasks of making the fillings, baking the cookies, and the final assembly.

Erica chose to make one butter cream and two custards for her fillings. All three were flavored with puréed, canned fruit she had purchased over a year ago when her anxiety told her an apocalypse was eminent. There are not many published recipes that involve using canned fruit in delicate French pastries. Her emotional investment was high. She needed something more than her entry-level job to show off. I was sure the macarons would taste fine, but was worried about what else might end up in there.

Where Erica went right in this adventure was in her attempt do use the French cooking technique mise en place, which involves preparing ingredients ahead of time so they can simply be added to the recipe. Butter and cream cheese were set on the counter to soften. Eggs were separated. And all the fruit puréed before any mixing of ingredients started.

With the cranberry custard, she tossed the ingredients one by one into a heated saucepan. Unfortunately this meant that the egg yolks cooked immediately, but surprisingly Erica was not deterred. She uttered a few choice words under her breath, then stirred the custard delicately so as not to disturb any of the scrambled egg and strained it when she was satisfied that it was done. For the next custard she mixed all her ingredients before putting them in the saucepan and everything went wonderfully.

She had a slight misadventure with the buttercream, when she realize she had not softened quite enough butter in proportion to the cream cheese. Her attempts to soften the extra butter were not quite sufficient and she ended the night with a somewhat lumpy buttercream frosting. Much to my dismay and anxiety she made no attempt to correct this, but simply scooped it into a container and put it in the refrigerator. I can somewhat understand why as I was already close to 10 PM. Overall, Erica’s outward composure was impressive.

The cookies were another adventure. For her first and largest batch, she simply sifted plain almond flour and sugar into her egg mixture. I know she noticed something amiss when she piped them onto the cookie tray, but it was too late to do anything and she was not going to start over. While those were waiting to go into the oven she surprised me by blending the remaining flour and sugar mixture. At some point that night, she also took the buttercream out of the refrigerator warmed, it up a bit and put that in the blender until it was smooth as well. There were more choice words from her and much hand-wringing from me.

I was not present for the assembly of the cookies. Erica did that on Friday morning before work. Occasionally, her anxiety wakes her up at some ungodly hour and rather than try to get back to sleep, she decides she has to do something. This time is was fill and assemble her macarons. This particular bout of anxiety worried me more than any of the quick, panicked reactions I had seen the night before. I did expressed this to her, but she just smiled and told me it would all be fine.

-Ella

*Erica does have a number of “friends from college,” whom she genuinely likes and with whom she has healthy, fulfilling friendships.