Chocolate Macarons

I first tasted macarons when my mom came back from her first trip to Paris. Amid the scarves, skirts, and sweaters she brought back, she also brought back a box of cookies that resembled baby hamburgers. I was intrigued by these French cookies, which I had never seen or heard of before. They were beautiful to look at, and the flavors were exotic to me at the time -- rose, pistachio, almond. Before seeing these macarons, I had always considered a cookie without chocolate not worthy of eating.

I recently re-discovered macarons after a phase of eating them quite frequently at Fleur de Cocoa in Los Gatos, CA. The crust was thin and shattered when I bit into it, leading to a chewy merengue interior. The flavors were nuanced, subtle, and sophisticated. Inspired, I decided to try my hand at making macarons for myself.

Based on suggestions from others, I left the egg whites out uncovered for about 4 hours to age them and then beat them by hand to shiny white soft peaks. I know they should be whipped to stiff peaks, but my arms couldn't take much more.

I made chocolate macarons by adapting Davod Lebovitz's recipe. Instead of his chocolate/prune filling, I made a chocolate/peanut butter filling (Michel Cluizel chocolate, Trader Joe's Valencia peanut butter, and Cabot butter, mixed in proportions until it tasted good to me).

My first batch of macarons don't look as refined as other macarons I've seen. They were not slim, posh, or glossy. The drab brown color and gloppy filling make them look absolutely frumpy as far as cookies go.
Despite their dowdy appearence, I was proud of them. While the flavor combination of peanut butter and chocolate can be considered unsophisticated, I found it to be delicious and comforting. I was also quite pleased with the texture of my macarons -- the chewy interior served as a foil to the delicate crust that shattered as I bit into it. The best part was being able to indulge in them with a gluttonous zeal that I had always refrained from doing when they looked too pretty to eat.