This Winter, the lab assistants for family and consumer science, senior Julia Conard and junior Olivia Van Dyke, took a virtual French Macaron Class to learn more about French courses. This whole experience was to give the students opportunities for learning outside of the curriculum. The students, along with their teacher, Ms.Quatrano, learned the art of the macarons and the folding process, which was the most challenging part. 

The French desserts are made up of meringue and almond meal, which is almond flour, and are typically filled with buttercream or ganache. The filling flavors were lemon crude, vanilla buttercream, and chocolate ganache. Julia and Olivia, were provided with a lesson in making a silky French buttercream, which is more authentic than the American kind. These macarons were made in the most genuine way, which was challenging but worth it: “Macarons can be hard to bake so having Mrs. Quatrano there as a second opinion was super helpful which led to the successful batch of macarons. It’s something that I would do again as it was a very smooth experience,” said Julia. The macarons were perfect and it was an exciting experience for the lab students. It opened up new opportunities and mindsets towards different cultures’ food.