Four Things to Know About Macarons

One of this bakery's specialties is a delicate cookie known as a macaron. Read on to learn more about this Parisian confection.

1. The main ingredient isn't flour—it's finely ground almonds. Combined with egg whites and sugar, the almond flour results in a soft, meringue-like cookie with a shiny, crunchy shell. Most often, bakers form macarons into little sandwiches, pairing two cookies with a sweet filling such as buttercream, ganache, or jam.

2. Don't confuse macaron with macaroon. They aren't alternate spellings—they're two different confections. "Macaroon" refers to the soft, crispy cookie made from shredded coconut and sometimes dipped in chocolate.

3. The cookie has several disputed origin stories. Some say macarons were born in the Italian Renaissance, others that French monks designed them in the image of their belly buttons. One bakery in Nancy, France, attributes the invention to two Benedictine nuns, who fled their convent in postrevolutionary France and made a new life selling the confections before passing down the recipe in secret.

4. One man, however, definitely created the sandwich. The idea to join two macaron shells together belongs to Pierre Desfontaines, who began selling them at a boutique Parisian bakery called Ladurée. Today, Ladurée's shops around the world sell 15,000 macarons a day—nearly half the amount of choux balls that make up the famous croquembouche known as the Eiffel Tower.