Like TV’s infamous Walter White, Maureen O’Neill was a high school chemistry teacher who quit the classroom to sell an exotic, irresistible and hard-to-perfect product.
While Walt broke bad, becoming heinous Heisenberg, O’Neill broke good, opening the Little Falls bakery Asalt and Buttery in 2011. Now her Parisian macarons are proving almost as habit-forming as Heisenberg’s blue crystals.
“When I decided to open a bakery, I knew I had to do something special and different and difficult to imitate,” she says. “Everybody and their mother was doing cupcakes.”
Searching for the answer, O’Neill flashed back to a trip to Paris she made seven years earlier with her daughter, then 18.
“She was interested in clothes shopping,” O’Neill says. “Guess who won? I didn’t taste one tenth of what I wanted to. But the macarons were everywhere, and that made a huge impression.”
Macarons tend to do that. They are not to be confused with coconut macaroons, chocolate-dipped or otherwise. The classic Parisian macaron (accent the last syllable with a nasal “own”) is a velvet slipper compared to those clodhoppers.
Structurally, it’s a simple sandwich, like an Oreo. But each feather-light half—made of almond flour, confectioner’s and granulated sugar and meringue—reveals three distinct textures as your teeth sink in. The skin, almost crackly, gives way to lightly chewy meringue, then creamy ganache, buttercream or fruit purée.
Macarons come in a rainbow of strikingly intense flavors and colors, virtually all natural. From her repertoire of about 80, O’Neill makes about 20 flavors a week, from perennials (chocolate, pistachio, lemon) to seasonals (pumpkin, egg nog) and exotics (ouzo, matcha jasmine honey, lychee). “The beauty of the macaron,” she says, “is its fresh flavor. The cookie itself requires a very delicate balance [because] the tastebuds pick up every nuance.”
It’s an esoteric nibble. You could devour one in a single bite, but you don’t—not at prices ranging from $1.50 to about $2.75 each in New Jersey (more in Manhattan).
The macaron didn’t start as a sandwich. Catherine de Medici brought from Italy a simple almond wafer when she arrived in France in 1533. In 1862, Louis-Ernest Ladurée, founder of the Parisian bakery Ladurée, lightened the wafers with meringue. The Eureka moment came in 1930, when Pierre Desfontaines, the founder’s grandson, joined two wafers with a layer of ganache in between. About a decade ago, the macaron slipped quietly into Manhattan’s Upper East Side, then spread.
Now it’s catching on here. Parisian native Andre Schneider opened Patisserie St. Michel in Teaneck in 1981, but didn’t start making macarons there until a decade later. “There wasn’t really a demand for it until then,” he explains. But ever since, “volume has grown. Now everyone seems to have jumped on the bandwagon.”
Miel Patisserie in Cherry Hill hopped aboard three years ago. “Their popularity started to grow in New York,” says owner Gelareh Nouri. “It was something we always wanted to carry, and the timing just seemed right.” Now the shop makes close to 2,000 macarons a day, producing most of their 35 flavors every week, including multiple batches of salted caramel, the most popular, and novelties like mojito (with rum) and margarita (with tequila). “They’ve become so popular,” Nouri says, “by the end of the week we are almost completely sold out.”
To block binge buying, the Scone Pony in Spring Lake sells its six flavors—chocolate, vanilla, lemon, raspberry, mocha and pistachio—only in one-of-each six-packs ($9). Those are the only flavors it makes, says owner Debra Buruchian, “because those are the ones people really like.”
An early adopter, Scone Pony has made macarons since it opened in 2008. “Truthfully, a lot of people don’t know what it is,” Buruchian says. “But those who do, seek it out. They’re so dainty and unique, people order them for teas and wedding showers.”
Most makers are loathe to discuss their recipes and techniques. “There’s a lot of flavor competition here in New Jersey,” says O’Neill. “A sort of macaron wars, even. It’s not super-intense, but it does exist.”
And little wonder. The macaron is quite a finicky fellow. “Humidity can wreak havoc,” O’Neill says. “If the air is wet, the cookie will not dry out on top and will rise unevenly and crack. I use a dehumidifier on humid days. I also have a humidifier for super-dry winter days. Controlling the environment is key.”
“In black-and-white, the recipe looks simple,” says Schneider of Patisserie St. Michel. “But if you do not follow it exactly, your macarons will fail.”
It’s safe to say that no one in New Jersey has amassed more macaron mastery than Schneider. Now 73, he began baking the pastel delicacies in Paris in 1955. He baked in 21 different patisseries throughout France before coming to the U.S. in 1972. He then spent five years in Chicago and a few more on Manhattan’s Upper East Side before opening in Teaneck.
“You must use fresh egg whites, and leave them at room temperature for at least 24 hours, otherwise the ingredients will not blend properly,” he warns. “You must fold the meringue only until it is shiny and soft. If you overmix, it will be too heavy, and if you do not mix enough, it won’t have that chewy texture.
“You have to use a low temperature, 300 to 310 degrees. And you can’t forget to leave the oven door slightly open, to let the steam out. That’s how temperamental these pastries can be.” Walter White could have made great macarons. And if he had, he might still be around.