After come back from a week off work, I found a tube of Angelina creme de marrons on my desk. At first, I thought it was really fancy hand cream, but upon reading the ingredients, I realized it was for baking. I didn’t know who left this at my desk, but I knew what they were thinking about – chestnut macarons.

Angelina is a tea room in Paris, located across the street from the Louvé museum. They are very famous for their hot chocolate – apparently this is where Audrey Hepburn would go for hot chocolate. The other thing they are known for is Mont Blanc, a dessert with a meringue base and topped with whipped cream and chestnut cream vermicelli. Here is a blog post i found about the Mont Blanc: Paris Breakfasts

I was instantly inspired to go home and experiment with this new ingredient.

I made a light chestnut buttercream with the chestnut cream, chestnut puree, rum, vanilla, sugar, and butter. For the cookies, I added chestnut puree and espresso powder into the meringue batter to add some depth to the macaron.

Take-away for all my other friends – give and you shall receive!