The maison · our pantry
Each ingredient, named and sourced.
A macaron has very few ingredients. That is why each one is chosen on purpose — from the French almond flour that forms the shell, to the Belgian chocolate that fills it, to the Sicilian pistachio that gives Green Ember its colour. Here is where each one is from, and why we chose it.
Provence, France
The structure of the macaron shell is almond — not flour, not starch, not anything else. We use French almond flour, blanched (the skins removed before grinding) and finely milled.
French almonds are higher in oil and lower in moisture than their American cousins, which gives the shell its characteristic matte finish and tender crumb. The oil is also what carries the almond perfume into the first bite, before the ganache arrives.
We sift it three times before every batch. See Our Method.
In every macaron.
Belgium
Belgian couverture is the standard for a reason. The cocoa butter content is higher than ordinary chocolate (around 32-38% versus 25%), which gives the ganache a melt-in-the-mouth texture that lingers — long, even, cool to warm.
We use a 70% dark couverture in Gilded Midnight for the depth of cocoa, and a high-cocoa-butter ivory couverture in Green Ember and Rosy Dusk — where white chocolate is not a flavour, it is the frame that lets the pistachio and the raspberry come forward.
No vegetable oil substitutes. No lecithin shortcuts. Just cocoa butter, cocoa mass and sugar — the way couverture has been made in Belgium for over a hundred years.
Bronte, Sicily (PDO)
Pistachios from Bronte, a small town on the volcanic slopes of Mount Etna, Sicily, are considered by most French pastry chefs to be the finest in the world. The volcanic soil gives the nut an unusually dense, resinous perfume that no other variety matches.
Bronte pistachios are PDO-protected (Pistacchio di Bronte DOP), meaning only pistachios grown in the Bronte region, Adrano, and Biancavilla can carry that name. The yield is small; the price per kilogram is high.
We use a 100% pure Bronte paste, cold-ground, with nothing added: no sugar, no oil, no colouring. One ingredient on the label. One ingredient in the ganache. Which is why Green Ember tastes of pistachio and not of a flavour inspired by pistachio.
In Green Ember.
Guérande, Brittany
Hand-harvested from the salt marshes of Brittany, where salt workers (les paludiers) skim the top crust of the shallow basins with long wooden rakes. It is never ground, never refined — the crystals you see on the shell are the crystals the ocean made.
Guérande fleur de sel carries a trace of minerals (magnesium, calcium) that give it a complexity ordinary salt cannot have. In Caramel Brûlé, it is folded into the caramel itself and scattered on the shell by hand before baking — which is why the first taste is sweet and the second taste is sharp: the salt arrives after the sugar, not with it.
A single pinch is also whisked into the Green Ember ganache. You do not taste salt there. You taste a pistachio that is a little rounder, a little longer — the way salt does its real work in French patisserie: unseen, but missed when absent.
In Caramel Brûlé, Green Ember.
Madagascar & Réunion
Grown on the islands of Madagascar and Réunion (formerly Île Bourbon, hence the name), Bourbon vanilla is the deepest, most floral vanilla on the market. French patisserie has used it for over a hundred and fifty years for a reason.
A whole pod is scraped by hand with the tip of a paring knife. Both the tiny black seeds and the pod itself are steeped in warm cream before the ganache is built on top. No extract. No powder. No imitation.
One pod per batch of Caramel Brûlé, and the ganache carries the quiet, almost smoky perfume of the real seed.
In Caramel Brûlé.
Hudson Valley, New York
Butter from small farms in the Hudson Valley, where the cows are grass-fed and the churn is unhurried. The butter is fresh — often churned two or three days before it reaches our kitchen — and still carries the perfume of the grass the cows ate the week before.
This is the American touch in Caramel Brûlé. A butter made two days ago, from grass eaten four days ago, carries a flavour that an industrial block simply cannot. The maison treats butter the way a Burgundian treats wine: by name, by farm, by season.
In Caramel Brûlé.
Georgia, USA
American pecans, sourced from local farmers' markets at the peak of the season, dry-toasted in a hot pan without oil until the natural fats rise to the surface. Then chopped and folded into the ganache of Gilded Midnight at the moment of assembly — so the crunch is still a crunch when you bite.
This is the deliberate American accent in a Parisian macaron. A small, textured surprise that answers the orange zest and the cocoa.
In Gilded Midnight.
New York State farms
Raspberries are the most delicate of the red fruits. The flavour is in the oil of the seed and the sugar of the pulp — both are destroyed by heat. So we use two forms, each for its purpose.
Fresh purée. Raspberries from New York farmers' markets at the peak of their season, warmed just enough to pass through a fine sieve. No pectin, no added sugar, no stabiliser — just the fruit. The purée goes into the ganache of Rosy Dusk.
Freeze-dried powder. Whole raspberries freeze-dried at low temperature (which removes the water without cooking the fruit), then ground to a fine powder. The powder keeps the colour, the perfume and the acid of a fresh berry — everything you lose when a fruit is turned into a syrup. The powder goes into the shell for the natural pink colour, and on the crown for the perfume you catch before the first bite.
In Rosy Dusk.
Fresh, from the market
Zest from whole, untreated oranges and lemons, grated fresh and slow-cooked in a light syrup (for the orange, in Gilded Midnight) or folded whole into warm cream (for the lemon, in Rosy Dusk). Nothing in it is an extract. Nothing is dried into powder.
The perfume you smell before the first bite of either is the oil of a real citrus fruit, folded into real sugar or real cream.
In Gilded Midnight, Rosy Dusk.
Food-grade, 24-carat
Food-grade gold leaf, 24-carat, scattered on the shell of Gilded Midnight by hand before the macaron is sealed. It is tasteless — which is the point: it does not alter the chocolate, it marks the macaron as the signature of the maison.
A gesture inherited from the great Parisian houses, kept as a permanent part of this recipe. Gold is one of the few food materials that never oxidises and never leaves a residue on the palate. It is also an element you only ever put there on purpose, by hand.
In Gilded Midnight.
Six macarons to a box. Each ingredient on this page, in one of them. Founder's price: $19.90.
Reserve my box for $19.90