Christina Ha Transcript
Jessie Sheehan:
Hi, peeps. You are listening to She's My Cherry Pie, a baking podcast from Cherry Bombe. I'm your host, Jessie Sheehan. I'm a baker, recipe developer and author of three baking books. Each Saturday, I'm hanging out with the sweetest bakers around and taking a deep dive into their signature bakes.
Today I'm talking all things macaron with Christina Ha. Macaron, macaroon, however you say it. We love these little treats. Christina is the baker and co-founder behind Macaron Parlour here in New York City, and she is a bonafide expert on these delicate desserts.
I have a confession to make. I have never made macaron, but I have a feeling we'll all want to get baking after this interview. Also, Christina has a whole second life. She's the co-founder of Meow Parlour, New York City's first permanent cat café. And, this is amazing, Christina has helped over 1,200 cats get adopted. I've always been a dog person, but I am a new cat mom, and on behalf of my kitty Ray and his brothers and sisters, thank you, Christina. This episode has something for everyone. Pet lover, Francophile, entrepreneur, dessert person. So, stay tuned.
Today's show is presented by Le Creuset and California Prunes. Cherry Bombe has a special event taking place in Sacramento on Wednesday, March 8th on International Women's Day with our friends at California Grown. Radio Cherry Bombe host, Kerry Diamond, will be moderating a panel of local farmers and makers, and we'll also hear from California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary, Karen Ross. The event will take place 10 to 11:30 a.m. at the California Department of Food and Agriculture Auditorium at 1220 North Street.
Here's a word about Le Creuset. For nearly a century, Le Creuset has been creating joy in the kitchen and beyond as the first in colorful cookware, the finest in quality and design, and the favorite of generations of cooks and bakers. Here on She's My Cherry Pie, there's a reason I always ask our guests about the tools and equipment they rely on. You can have the best ingredients around and be one of the world's top culinary talents, but you also need cookware and bakeware you can depend on.
Professionally, I've relied on Le Creuset for years. When I'm developing recipes, testing new treats for my cookbooks, or making something precise like caramel. And personally, I use my Le Creuset pieces all the time when cooking for myself or my family. If you need a special gift for any upcoming college graduations or weddings, you can't go wrong with a classic Le Creuset Dutch Oven, which you can use for almost everything. You can make individual molten chocolate cakes or berry crumbles in them or even use them for your mise-en-place. Head over to LeCreuset.com to browse their gorgeous colors, find other gift ideas, and snag some recipes.
Let's chat with today's guest. Christina, so happy to have you here on She's My Cherry Pie, and so excited to talk about macarons, cats, and more with you.
Christina Ha:
Ooh, I'm so excited to be here.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yay. I thought we would jump in right away by telling the peeps about your two main interests: cookies and cats, which I just love that, and how you do both for a living. So, you're the co-founder and the co-owner of both Macaron Parlour and Meow Parlour, New York's first cat café. Could you tell us about each place, and also please share how many cats you have helped to get adopted.
Christina Ha:
Macaron Parlour is my first baby. We opened in 2010. My husband and I basically met in October of 2009, and then five months later we were silly enough to think, "Oh my gosh, we should open a business together." In 2012, we opened our first storefront and we've been doing it since then.
One day when we were coming home from our store in 2013, he found a cat outside. It is New York's first cat cafe. I opened it with Emilie [Legrand] who used to work in the Macaron Parlour kitchen, and when we found our first cat, Emilie was like, "Hey, let me show you or teach you a little bit more about how to be a cat person." She's from France, and she was like, "Oh, by the way, Paris is about to open their first cat café." And I got so jealous, insanely jealous, and I was like, "I'm in New York City. This is supposed to be the greatest city in the world and we don't have a cat café. How's this even possible?"
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh, I love that.
Christina Ha:
And I was just filled with just jealousy. I think I came to this point where I was like, "Why am I jealous about this whole thing? Why aren't I just doing it?" I have a bakery, and how hard is it to add some cats to it? Obviously, they're not in the same space because that's not how the Department of Health works, and the cats do not make cookies themselves, but they're next door to each other.
So, on one side you have Macaron Parlour and you could go in and get pastries and you could get coffee, you could just hang out there as a regular café. And next door, we have a space that's got all of these cats in it. At any given time, we usually have between 10 and 15 cats, and they're just free roaming and they're walking around. Most people who come don't actually come to adopt, but when you come to adopt, it's actually a really great environment.
It's not the most natural environment, but it is an environment that makes a lot more sense for them, and it's an opportunity for you to meet them on their own terms. Obviously, it's a lifetime ago, but it feels very interesting to know that all these things came together into this whole place where we landed, where I get to do two things that I love.
And when we first started Meow Parlour, we originally worked with a partner rescue, and then in 2018 we're like, "You know what? Let's do it ourselves." We got very invested in the cats. We were like, "Let's fundraise for them. Let's take care of the medical care. Let's bring in more." We could do more, I think, if we had more control over the process. So, starting in 2018, almost exactly five years ago, we've done 1,218 adoption since then.
Jessie Sheehan:
Amazing. I love that. You came to New York City about 20 years ago and you were doing fashion PR and you were not loving it. I think your mom suggested that you might be interested in taking a baking class because she remembered that you loved baking when you were in preschool, which just I love, love that little snippet.
Christina Ha:
Absolutely. When I was in preschool, I went to this really cool preschool. They had cultural weeks where you would spend a week learning about different cultures and it included things like learning a little bit about the language, a little bit about the customs, and also taking us to a kitchen where we would watch demonstrations of them baking, and sometimes we got to bake ourselves, and that's something that I would take home because my parents are from Korea, so we didn't bake in the same way that Americans bake.
And so to be like, "Hey mom, let's make these cookies together and let's do this." It was a thing that we did together all the time. And my next door neighbor was my best friend growing up, and she'd come over and we'd bake too. Sometimes her older sisters would get a new cookbook and we'd bake from there.
I think partially because my parents let me do it mostly unsupervised. So, we did all of the baking at our house. It was a thing that I had always done. And even when I was in high school, I would also bake during the breaks or when there's an exam or something where I was like, "This is stressful. Let me make some cookies." And the cookies weren't just for me, it was just for everyone else because it was like, "You need some cookies to lighten the mood."
I actually didn't know it was a career option. That's one of the things I think that happens when your parents are immigrants is that they kind of push you towards a certain idea of what success is. And I get that. You are much more stable when you have a job as a doctor, as an engineer. And so it was never like, "Oh, you should get a job as a baker."
After moving to New York City, I would spend a lot of time just kind of eating to make myself happy. And I was so stressed out at my job because I wasn't good at it. I'm an introvert and PR is not for introverts, and I didn't know that. I didn't realize that. I think I just really was like, "No, I love fashion. I love this. I can share all of this stuff. I can talk about it." When it got to the part, it was like, "Okay, what tie should be in this magazine three months from now?" And I was like, "I don't know."
It was really hard, I think, to go out there and to do that part of it, but I was so sad. I would spend all this time, and I found myself peeking and looking into the kitchens of other places and seeing these people work and they were working silently and they knew what they were doing. They were not dealing with strangers. And it was very satisfying, I think, to see them and to be like, "That's an option. That's a thing that people are doing."
And I then found myself going home at night, and after a day at work, I would just sit on the floor. I would make a loaf of bread, and sit on the floor, and put it in the oven, and just watch it. And my feet are always cold. So, I would tuck my toes under the oven and just watch everything get bigger. It would turn brown. You could suddenly start to smell it. And this is what I was doing and I was in my early 20s.
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell us about Paris and Hermé and macarons.
Christina Ha:
Sure. Starting in about 2008, I started making macarons at home. And by making them, I mean I was just failing at them in the worst way possible. Now that I'm more experienced, I'm starting to realize it was probably because my parents' oven was 30 years old.
Back then, I had never had one before. I had picked this up because I remember reading this thing that was like, “The hardest thing that you can make is a macaron.” And I was obviously up for this challenge. I did so poorly at it. I was baking every day and I was living at my parents' house at that time. I think I couldn't afford to live in New York anymore, so I went back to New Jersey for, I think, about a five-month stretch. And during that time, I was baking every day. It was so bad that my sisters were helping me out.
I was learning about egg whites and learning how to whip things by hand because I was like, "Maybe it's the mixer, maybe it's this, maybe it's that." And I was like, "I'm really bad at this." And so I was like, "I just want to go to school and have someone teach me." And I went online and I was looking up all these classes and I saw that Pierre Hermé, who's obviously the God of macarons, had designed a program in Paris at a professional school, and that if you were a professional, you could take it.
I was like, "Oh, I'm going to take this class." And the requirement was that it was only for professionals, and they said that the class was taught in French and in English. Back then you had to use a calling card to call internationally. I bought a calling card and I called them and I was like, "Well, I'm a student," which was not true. I told them that I was a student. I was like, "It's a six-month program, and I'm three and a half months into it. I've never worked at a restaurant," but I was like, "I'm 100% a student. I'm totally professional." And they were like, "That's acceptable and you can come to our program."
Jessie Sheehan:
Amazing.
Christina Ha:
And I remember I was working at a nonprofit back then, telling my boss, I was like, "I have to go to Paris at the end of the month." And I went, and obviously I wasn't very good, but I thought to myself, because the class was taught 90% French and 10% English, I was like, "That's perhaps why it looks like I'm so bad at this class."
But the thing that got to me was that I was the third worst in the class, which meant I wasn't the worst. Without any background, I managed to be better than two people. And to me that was like, "Okay, I can make a career out of this because I have so much natural talent. I'm better than two professionals." I don't know if they lied to get into the program too.
Jessie Sheehan:
I just think that's so brave of you and so amazing that you just put yourself out there. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Thank you to California Prunes for sponsoring this episode of She's My Cherry Pie. It's a funny coincidence that California Prunes is our sponsor because I love prunes. Last year, my doctor told me I should eat six a day for healthy bones, and I've been hooked ever since. Prunes are also good for your heart and your gut, and they're loaded with nutrients like vitamin K, dietary fiber, potassium, and antioxidants. And moreover, they are delicious. They're 100% my go-to smart snack.
Snacking aside, I didn't realize how versatile California Prunes are for cooking and baking, but it makes perfect sense. They're sweet but complex with a rich, jammy flavor that compliments so many ingredients, from chocolate to cheese. You can use chopped California Prunes in baked goods like muffins and scones the same way you would any other dried fruit.
California Prunes are a lush and healthy addition to any of these treats. You can also make prune puree, which is prunes and water blended together, and swap that into certain recipes in place of eggs or oil or to reduce the amount of sugar. For more on prune puree and great recipes that include prunes, head over to CaliforniaPrunes.org.
Now, back to our guest. Let's dive into your French macaron. There's Italian and there's French, but we're going to start with the French, and then we'll talk about the Italian a little bit. Now, I don't want you to tell a soul, but I have never made macarons, so I am extremely excited not only to talk about it with you, but then to make them. But I am a little bit scared, as maybe some other people are who've never made them before.
The funny thing about these cookies is that there's not a lot of ingredients and it's pretty easy steps to do. There's a lot of technique within those steps that one needs to master, but you're going to be our teacher. First things first, in terms of the ingredients, there's confectioners' sugar, which you recommend either measuring via spooning and leveling into your measuring cup, or best case scenario, you want us to use a scale, correct?
Christina Ha:
Scale's always better, but I don't want to exclude you from doing this if you don't have a scale.
Jessie Sheehan:
I agree. I agree. I feel the same way when I write recipes. Then you have almond flour, which I think all macarons have almond flour. Could you substitute a hazelnut flour and do people do that?
Christina Ha:
Not necessarily hazelnut flour. Hazelnut flour has a lot more oil in it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right, of course.
Christina Ha:
You can substitute it with something else that's similar in properties, so it could be ground up sunflower seeds.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, interesting. If you have a nut allergy, but not a seed allergy. Oh, very cool.
Christina Ha:
I've done it with pumpkin seeds too.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, cool. And do you have a favorite brand of almond flour?
Christina Ha:
My favorite is Blue Diamond. I find it to be the most consistent.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, great. And you're not grinding almonds into the flour, you're buying it already ground?
Christina Ha:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Christina Ha:
But I used to grind it when I was younger and had more time and also had no money. You could just boil it so that the skin comes off, pops off really easily, then you put it in the oven for 20 minutes, let it roast on 200 degrees, then you just grind it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Amazing. And then egg whites from four large eggs and then now some granulated sugar. Why does a macaron need two different kinds of sugars in it?
Christina Ha:
The granulated sugar goes with the egg whites to make a meringue, and the powdered sugar goes with the almond flour to make the batter. You want it to be very, very fine to go with the almond flour. And then the granulated sugar... I'm not sure why there's ever been a reason why you don't use confectioner's sugar, besides the fact that it has cornstarch in it, which likely is not a good mix.
Jessie Sheehan:
You're right, meringue is always granulated sugar. Although you can make it probably with brown sugar. I feel like I've seen a brown sugar meringue.
Christina Ha:
Yeah. They're a little different, but they turn out really well.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. And then the final ingredient is food coloring. Do you have a favorite brand of food coloring that you'd want to share?
Christina Ha:
I really like Chef Master. That's my preferred brand that we use.
Jessie Sheehan:
And if one wanted to avoid an artificial food coloring, do you have any swaps with beets or turmeric or...
Christina Ha:
That one's hard. I'm sure that they can work if you get a powder version. What I've found when using the natural colors is that sometimes they brown in the oven. Because I like to bake them all the way through so that they're pretty solid when they come out, even if you've put in something sort of natural, it kind of comes out very brown.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. I've had that experience with natural food coloring too.
Christina Ha:
Yeah. I prefer that if we're going to go that route, we're going to go with something that you don't mind for it to be brown, for it to be less about the color and more about the flavor.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then there's also obviously fillings for these cookies, but we're just talking about the cookie part right now. First things first, you're going to sift together your confectioner's sugar and your almond flour. Do you have a favorite sieve or tool that you use for the sifting?
Christina Ha:
I'm not that fancy. If it's there and I can get the almond flour through it, we're going to use it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. And sometimes almond flour can be a little chunky. Do you try and sieve really finely or you kind of smush it through the sieve?
Christina Ha:
I try to take out all of the chunks as much as possible. If it's really chunky, I'll just grind it. And if you're going to grind it, you're going to do it with the almond flour and the confectioner sugar because otherwise the almond flour will release a lot of oils.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you do this into a small bowl. I know some of these questions are sort of... There's probably something you do in the bakery versus something you do at home, but would you use a glass bowl? Would you use a metal bowl? Just sort of anything you can find?
Christina Ha:
I think any bowl is fine as long as you can feel comfortable holding it because you're going to manipulate things a lot. As long as it's comfortable to you, I think it's fine.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. Okay, great. Then you're going to whisk your egg whites and your granulated sugar together in the stand mixer on low speed. Could you use a handheld mixer or do you feel like to get the most lift out of your meringue, you really want it to be a stand mixer?
Christina Ha:
I think you can totally used a hand mixer. I just like the stand mixer because I like to go measure everything else out while I'm waiting for it to go.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. For one minute in the stand mixer, you're going to beat the egg whites and the sugar on low until they're kind of combined. Then you're going to do another two minutes until they get milky. And I can sort of picture that it's kind of a color more than it is a texture when you say milky, correct?
Christina Ha:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, and then turn that mixer up to high and you're going to whisk until it's... Did I say also that it was a whisk attachment? I hope I did. You're going to whisk that meringue until it gets really thick. And I love this. You described it as, "Leaving marks in the meringue, almost like a little trail." Would you sort of turn off your mixer for a sec, take off the whisk attachment, and almost run it through to see the trail or it's almost something you'll see just by picking up the top of your mixer, you'll see that that whisk is left a trail in it?
Christina Ha:
You can actually see it while it's mixing.
Jessie Sheehan:
Cool, cool.
Christina Ha:
As long as your eyes are in pretty good shape and you look down as it passes by, you'll see it. It'll start to look like a very tight pack of cotton balls.
Jessie Sheehan:
Cool. And then I think I know why, but just in case the listeners don't, can you explain why when we make meringue, we do it in this kind of... sometimes you even have your egg whites, you get them foamy, and then you add your sugar. Can you explain, first of all, why you do the two together to begin with? And then also why it's important to move slowly through the speeds of the mixer?
Christina Ha:
When you whip up egg whites, basically you're putting air into it, and egg whites are primarily just protein and water, so it's like 90% water and 10% proteins, and you can absolutely whip up the egg whites and add the sugar. But I approach this as if you've never done this before, it's really intimidating because there's a very small window where you can add the sugar and everything turns out fine, or you could just add the sugar to begin with and that gives you a much longer runway.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's great insurance. I don't think I've ever... Maybe all macaron recipes are like that, but I think that's great. That's really helpful. In an additional one and a half to two minutes, your meringue will be thick, it'll be fluffy. You'll have medium stiff peaks. So, for you, medium stiff, is the point of the peak going to stand straight up, or is it going to be slightly bent, but very firm?
Christina Ha:
I think it'll be slightly bent, but fairly firm.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, great. And I love this, which of course I've heard before, but I still want to repeat it. You should be able to hold the bowl upside down without the meringue sliding out of the bowl, which I of course wrote in my notes, "Eek," because that scares me. But that's true, right? It'll just stay in the bowl when you're at the right stage.
Christina Ha:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to begin to add this beautiful meringue that we just made into that confectioner's sugar and almond mixture. And this happens a lot when you're folding something light into something heavy. You do it in stages. The first stage is just one third of the meringue into your almond flour and confectioners sugar. And you even say you can do it aggressively. You just really want to incorporate those two items and you do it with a spatula. Do you have a favorite brand of spatulas that you would want to share?
Christina Ha:
I don't have a favorite brand, but I always like the kind you could cook with because I worry about it less.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. Meaning that it wouldn't melt, that it's some kind of... Yeah, that makes sense. And so you're folding aggressively until it's well combined. And interestingly enough, it's at this early stage that you're going to add your color.
Christina Ha:
Yep.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is it hard, because you're adding your color so early, do you have to realize that the color is going to lighten because you have more meringue to add, or does it not really change that much from this point on?
Christina Ha:
It'll get a lot lighter. I just like adding the color early because that way I can still think about the color and make corrections before I get to a later point. If I add it in too late and I'm like, "Actually, I wanted this to be darker..."
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. That makes sense.
Christina Ha:
It's too late.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. Because you don't want to over-mix.
Christina Ha:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Oh, that's really smart. All right, so we are adding our food coloring kind of early on, but just people should be aware that when they add it, dark is okay because you're going to be adding more meringue and it's going to lighten.
Then you're going to aggressively, and yes, that's the verb, peeps. You're aggressively going to add in another third of the meringue because you really want it to be well incorporated. Correct?
Christina Ha:
Absolutely.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're not worried about deflating our egg whites.
Christina Ha:
No. Well, we want to deflate the egg whites. That's why we do it in thirds.
Jessie Sheehan:
Helpful. You're aggressively starting to deflate. Aggressively again, starting to deflate. Again, you can adjust the food coloring at this point.
Christina Ha:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, that's interesting. It's a recipe that's made of something light and fluffy and airy, but in the end, the texture you want is not that airy.
Christina Ha:
It's really weird.
Jessie Sheehan:
We've added two thirds of our meringue, and I wrote, "No fear of deflating whites," in my notes, but actually that's exactly what we're doing. As Christina just said, we're deflating them. And now we can adjust our food coloring again. Obviously, you can't take any away, but if you wanted to add a teeny bit more, you totally could.
Now we move into some delicate folding. We're going to add the last third of this meringue and do it delicately. We're trying not to over-mix, we're trying not to under-mix. Is it delicate because we do not want to over-mix and under-mix at this point?
Christina Ha:
Basically, you want to give yourself a little bit of time, especially if this is your first time doing it. Also, I've seen a lot of people who make this recipe for the first time, and their arm gets tired.
Jessie Sheehan:
So that you're also like, "Okay, you've gotten a really good Peloton workout. Now you can just relax and be gentle." I like that. You're being nice to us. You write this too, which I think is really helpful, "If your meringue was really stiff when you started, which is what you want, then by the time you add that last third, you'll be good to go."
But if it was a little soft when you started, maybe it didn't quite have that medium peak where we were after, you have to be extra careful not to over-mix, because you can and it just won't have structure. It'll be droopy. I don't know if that's the best adjective.
And then I also love this in terms of testing that batter and making sure you don't have droopiness, you take a small amount of the batter. It's almost like when you're combining butter and sugar for, let's say, you are beating butter and sugar until you see ribbons, or when you lift the whisk cup, you see the batter ribbon in the bowl, essentially that's what you want us to see. Take a small amount of batter, drop it back into the bowl, and after 30 seconds, if it's flattened out and slowly melts back into the batter, you're good.
Christina Ha:
Yeah, basically. And have patience for this, I think. It's a lot of times in your mind you're like, "It's been 30 seconds," but it's been seven.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. That's a really good tip too, because that's me. I'd be like, "Oh my God, it's been two minutes. I'm a disaster." That's a really good tip. Peeps, are you listening? You really need to wait that 30 seconds. If it doesn't move at all, it means the batter's still too thick and you need, after 30 seconds, and you need to keep folding gently. And if it's runny, your batter's over-mixed.
Christina Ha:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And here's the key question. At that point, can it be salvaged?
Christina Ha:
Not with that batch by itself, but you can make another half batch.
Jessie Sheehan:
Of just the meringue or the-
Christina Ha:
The whole recipe again.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Christina Ha:
And then just combine them in. Basically you're going to just make another one, and then you're going to just kind of fold them in together. Maybe when you get to step two, which is before you add your last third, then you combine them.
Jessie Sheehan:
Perfect. And then add the last third?
Christina Ha:
Yep.
Jessie Sheehan:
Great. Oh, that's good to know. Now you're getting ready to pipe, or to spoon, or to scoop your batter. Do you draw circles on a piece of parchment paper and make yourself a guide for where you... I've seen those Silpat mats with little tiny macaron circles on them. What would you suggest for me who has never made macaron before?
Christina Ha:
I parchment for regular production, but you can't exactly buy parchment with circles on it. What I usually do is, if I'm going to deal with that, is I'm going to draw... I usually use the back of a piping tip and I trace those and I make circles and I draw it. But then when I'm piping, I'll put another parchment on top of it so that I'm not using the thing that I just drew on. So, you only have to draw it once.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I see. And then you save what you drew on.
Christina Ha:
Yep.
Jessie Sheehan:
Honey, you're the tip master. I love that. That's so smart.
Christina Ha:
And then you can also buy the Silpats with the circles on it now. There's a lot of different options.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. At this point in the game, can our batter just sit there or should we have drawn on our parchment when we first began?
Christina Ha:
I think you could draw on your parchment when you begin or when you're watching your favorite TV show, whenever.
Jessie Sheehan:
But it's okay if it happens at this moment? It's okay for the batter to sit on the counter while I go draw on my parchment, or is it a good idea to get it done first so I can move the batter into the oven pretty quickly?
Christina Ha:
I think it would be better if you got it first. I think if you were doing Italian meringue, you have a little bit more time. But if you happen to be a very slow drawer, that's not great either.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. Okay. Makes sense. In general, I think preparing your pan, making sure the circles are there, that's a good idea to get done. And is there a specific size for the circle that we're after?
Christina Ha:
Ours are usually one and a half, two inches.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Good to know. You could figure this out, but would you think on a standard piece of parchment that's going to go in a standard half sheet pan, would it be 12 or maybe even more?
Christina Ha:
I like to make it so that there's space between them because they will spread out. I think you can do 12 very comfortably. I think if you did more than that, if you were really good at engineering, maybe you could do that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I'm not, in case you were wondering.
Christina Ha:
But 12 is a safe number.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Okay, perfect. And do you have a favorite sheet pan that you're using? I mean, I know it's all a little different bakery versus home.
Christina Ha:
For these, I like to use a lighter colored aluminum sheet pan.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, good to know.
Christina Ha:
Because when it's dark, it absorbs a lot more heat. And that's really great for things like cookies, but this, you don't really want all the heat to come in just at the bottom.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. Makes sense. I actually feel like those dark pans are a bummer no matter what. I just always feel like you don't have enough control, even for a cookie. I just feel like they can brown too much. And then a piping bag with a one half inch tip. Favorite brand of piping bag?
Christina Ha:
No, I don't really have one. I just like it to be usually around 20 inches.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Christina Ha:
I don't have very big hands, but I feel a lot more secure when there's a lot of space at the top.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, between the batter and the end.
Christina Ha:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
I'm literally the worst. If I use a piping bag, it's literally splurging in my face because I've filled the bag too much. It's not pretty. And there is a tip?
Christina Ha:
I like to use a tip with a half inch opening. If you're newer, you can go a little bit smaller than that. If you go bigger, it's harder to control.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. And can you use a Ziploc bag and just snip the end?
Christina Ha:
I feel like if you put all this effort and money into making this already...
Jessie Sheehan:
You just go get a bag and a tip.
Christina Ha:
Get a bag.
Jessie Sheehan:
I feel you. And you have this note that I didn't totally understand, but you said, "Pipe only half the batter if new to piping," which, hello. That's me. What did you mean? Meaning pipe half the batter and then rest, or you meant put only half the batter in the piping bag?
Christina Ha:
Put only half the batter into the piping bag.
Jessie Sheehan:
Got it.
Christina Ha:
Thanks for pointing that out.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. No, I only realized it as I was saying it out loud. I was like, "Oh, I bet that..." Because I of course read it and didn't understand, but now I do. And are there tips for piping, the technique? How do you hold the bag? Should you squeeze the top? Should you squeeze the bottom? The middle?
Christina Ha:
I hold my bag perpendicular to the tray. I'm a righty. So, I take my dominant hand and I put it closer to the tip so I can control it, and I put my left hand towards the top.
Jessie Sheehan:
Are you holding it closed?
Christina Ha:
I twist the top of the bag so that it's closed and then I just hold it for support. My left hand is not a very good hand. It's more of a supportive role, so it's there to hold it, but all the control happens in my dominant hand and then I just squeeze and then I stop and then I do a twist. I think it's very, very natural if you've never piped before, to squeeze. And a lot of people continue to keep squeezing as they pull back, but if you mentally are like, "I'm going to stop, then I will remove it." You're more likely to have smaller tips or no tips. And truthfully, I've trained a lot of bakers. If you're learning to hand pipe for the first time, it usually takes about 1200 macarons before you nail it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I believe you because it's such... for some reason in your brain, because I know exactly what you mean. To get your hand to stop squeezing and to incorporate, you call it the flick of the wrist, is... Well, first of all, flick of the wrist. I'm already crying. I'm worried I can't flick at all. But also you want to keep squeezing while you're flicking.
Christina Ha:
Oh, absolutely. It's natural.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then do you say then to firmly tap the tray onto the counter twice to remove air bubbles, does that also remove the tip?
Christina Ha:
It should soften the tip. It doesn't always 100% get away.
Jessie Sheehan:
You go back with a moistened finger?
Christina Ha:
Yeah, you can. You can take a damp towel and just wet your finger and push it down. You can also use a toothpick and you just... For air bubbles or anything, you can kind of just fix it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Piping. That's the hard part. I won't lie.
Christina Ha:
That is the hardest part.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is that really?
Christina Ha:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. That's how it feels. It's 1200 meringues. So, how long does the baker have to be working for you before they master it?
Christina Ha:
Usually, three to four weeks.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's about 1200 for someone? Makes sense.
Christina Ha:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Okay. I'm going to make 1200 macarons.
Christina Ha:
Please.
Jessie Sheehan:
I have to come in and work and intern for you and then I could maybe do it?
Christina Ha:
Absolutely.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're tapping our tray, which scares people a little bit, but that is... you're doing that a lot with baked goods, trying to get your bubbles out by doing a little bang bang. And then you let the piped meringue sit for 10 minutes to form a skin. Is the skin visible or more you just have to assume after 10 minutes something's happened?
Christina Ha:
It's visible. When you look at it, it looks a little bit more dull, a little bit more dry, and you can just touch it. So if you were to touch it lightly, and I mean very lightly, if it doesn't stick to your finger-
Jessie Sheehan:
You're fine.
Christina Ha:
You're fine.
Jessie Sheehan:
You're good to go.
Christina Ha:
And if it sticks, keep waiting.
Jessie Sheehan:
Does kitchen temperature matter? If it's a really warm day, does it take longer for it to dry or vice versa, if it's cold?
Christina Ha:
For us, temperature hasn't mattered as much as humidity. If it's pouring rain that day, it will take longer to dry. And there are some days that are just really, really dry. So, especially if you're hand piping, when you start at the beginning of the tray, by the time you get to the end, it could already be dry. And that happens sometimes.
Jessie Sheehan:
On a really dry day?
Christina Ha:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
But is there any problem with like, "Oh shoot, those are all ready to go in and it's been 10 minutes, but I just piped these and I want to..." Can they wait for 20 minutes on the counter or do you run into trouble if you wait too long?
Christina Ha:
It's one of those things where you get into more trouble if you put it in too early than if you put in too late.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Good to know. What happens if you put it in too early?
Christina Ha:
The skin actually kind of gives it structure. The meringue is still going to expand in the oven. And so what you want is for it to rise when it expands and it kind of comes out of the bottom. And those are the little macaron feet, and that's what you want. You want the feet to come out on the bottom, but if there's no skin over the top, it's easiest for everything, all of the steam, to escape through the middle. So, that's where you'll get those cracks.
Jessie Sheehan:
I got you. Good to know. You're baking at 325 for 12 minutes or till the macarons come clearly off the parchment. Do you like to rotate the pan at the halfway mark or do you not like to open the oven?
Christina Ha:
I don't like to open the oven. And I have a really good tip about the temperature. Not every oven when it says 325 is 325, so I like to think 12 minutes is my important number, and so if it's a new oven, I'll just make a tray that has just four macarons on it, so I hit the different corners of the oven and I'll put it in. I check on it at four minutes, and that's usually when the feet are just starting to rise. So, they should lift up just a little bit. If you look at it at four minutes and the feet are really high, your oven's too hot. If nothing has happened, so you can adjust your oven accordingly based off that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Great. There's also just... I want to put in a plug for a thermometer, which everyone should use anyway. I know that you and I have talked about what it's like to work in different kitchens and not know them very well and not know the oven. So, that's a great tip if you end up working with an oven and you don't have an oven thermometer.
Christina Ha:
Absolutely.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. And then I know what you mean, but essentially once they're ready, you should be able to lift it up and it just comes off the parchment.
Christina Ha:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Do you wait till it's cool and you use a spatula?
Christina Ha:
No, I use my bare hands, which I realize probably isn't a normal thing to do or normal to not be able to feel that. But yeah, you can kind of just lift it off.
Jessie Sheehan:
Do you wait a few minutes though or do they come out of the oven and as soon as it... you're not going to burn yourself when you're taking them off?
Christina Ha:
I can peel it off when it comes off the oven, but again, I know that that's not normal. You can also take it out and let it sit. The thing is that because I can do it while it's still in the oven, I can tell if it's ready or not while it's still in there. But if you wait for it to come out, you can't put it back in.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, okay.
Christina Ha:
So, if you pull it out and it's under baked, you're done.
Jessie Sheehan:
Why do you think that is? Just because they're so fragile?
Christina Ha:
What happens is that it rises, the meringue rises, it basically... The whole thing fills out. If it's not fully baked, it collapses. It's too soft, and the meringue kind of collapses down. So, what you want is you want to bake it all the way through so that it maintains that structure. You're basically kind of drying it out so that it's full the whole way through. If you take it out too early and it's not done, it's going to collapse. And so putting it back in the oven is not going to make it rise again.
Jessie Sheehan:
Of course. That makes perfect sense. And obviously, I'm assuming we want our macarons at room temperature before we're going to fill them. Do you leave them on the sheet pan or do you put them on a cooling rack?
Christina Ha:
I leave it on the sheet pan. I like to not be fancy.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know, right? No, I feel you. Before we get into the fillings, which are so fun and delicious, will you just tell us the difference? What we just discussed is a French meringue. An Italian meringue is a cooked meringue. Am I wrong to distinguish a French from Italian in the sense that I'm calling it cooked?
Christina Ha:
No. For Italian, you cook sugar. You cook the sugar and then you heat it up and then you add it to your egg whites. It's more structurally stable because you cook the sugar before you add it in. It cooks the meringue, so therefore it is more solid. It has a longer shelf life.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, do you do Italian all the time because-
Christina Ha:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Interesting. By the way, peeps, I have this beautiful box of macarons next to me that Christina brought me, made with love in New York City. ‘Life is sweet’ on the side. Honey, are all the ones right in here Italian?
Christina Ha:
Yes, because we do big batches.
Jessie Sheehan:
Of course.
Christina Ha:
We need it to be consistent between the beginning and the end of the batch, and Italian meringue allows us to do that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Amazing. Do you feel like when you make a French one at home, let's say, do you feel like, "Oh, that's so much easier," or to you it's one and the same?
Christina Ha:
There's less to clean and that always makes things easier.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. So true. All right. I'm going to tell people what you do with the Italian meringue. And it's a little interesting. It's not just cooking the sugar because you divide the whites and cook the whites and the sugar together on the stove top, which I think is kind of unusual. I feel like most recipes when you make a Swiss meringue buttercream or something, you're heating your sugar, but the egg whites are all over in your stand mixer. Do you know what I mean? And you add them afterwards.
Do you think that's just the extra stability that adding those whites to the sugar gives you in an Italian meringue? I guess I'm just trying to understand the science of why the whites are both in the hot sugar and also then added to the whites that are at room temp.
Christina Ha:
So, remember how we divided up the meringue and the French meringue into three parts? The Italian meringue is actually much stiffer, and instead of having to deal with all of that, we just take the unwhipped egg whites and just do that as our first step. So, we mix the egg whites with the confectioner's sugar and the almond flour. And that's fairly easier because you're going to break it down anyway because the Italian meringue is so strong. So, there's really no point in making this huge meringue that you're going to do this too, because your arm's going to hurt a lot.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I feel you. And just so I understand, a classic Italian meringue is always the sugar and the whites warmed on the stove top?
Christina Ha:
That's a Swiss meringue. For an Italian meringue, you're going to whip up your egg whites and then you're going to heat up sugar. For us, we do it to about 245 degrees Fahrenheit. Well, we heat up the sugar with water.
Jessie Sheehan:
I thought you had the whites divided and you had some of them with the sugar and the water, and then some of them separate.
Christina Ha:
We do divide it. So, we'll have half of the egg whites to go and make this meringue, and half of the egg whites stand behind.
Jessie Sheehan:
I understand. Then you have the cooked meringue, the cooked sugar, and whites that are added to the whites that have been combined with our dry mixture of confectioner's sugar and almond flour. And then we just have one job of combining those two things, or do you do it in three...
Christina Ha:
I divide that in half. The first one is just the unwhipped egg whites, the confectioner's sugar, almond flour. And then I add about half of the meringue into that, and that's my step two. And then the third one is then I add the rest of the meringue, and that's where I start to incorporate it.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you're doing it gently for that last one, or you don't have to be quite as worried about that?
Christina Ha:
You don't have to be as gentle. I find that if while I'm mixing it, as long as I can still see streaks of the white meringue, I can be a little bit more rough.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep, I understand.
Christina Ha:
And as soon as that's gone, then I start to slow down.
Jessie Sheehan:
When's the moment for the food coloring when you're doing Italian meringue?
Christina Ha:
You can do it the same.
Jessie Sheehan:
Same. And does it taste any different or it's a more stable product?
Christina Ha:
When I was in Paris, they said that the French meringue has the best flavor and the Swiss meringue has the worst flavor, but the best structure, and that the Italian meringue was kind of a compromise of both of those things. I personally don't taste it that much if it's a relatively young macaron because they have a pretty long shelf life. But if they've been out for a long time, I can taste that something is a French meringue because they start to break down a lot faster.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Interesting. All right. Now we get to talk about the delicious fillings that go inside these cookies. First of all, what's the most popular filling?
Christina Ha:
Red velvet, which is filled with the cream cheese filling and s'mores.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yum. Tell me about the s'mores one.
Christina Ha:
We use a brown sugar shell, and then we make a ring of chocolate ganache, and then we put marshmallow fluff in the center.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh. I am a huge marshmallow fluff fan. There's a salted caramel buttercream that does sound really good to me, which is granulated sugar, vanilla pod, heavy cream, fleur de sel. Is that just like a flaky sea salt?
Christina Ha:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Like a Maldon. And then chilled butter. So, you make the caramel on the stove top, and I love that you don't require a candy thermometer.
Christina Ha:
Nope.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. I love that. The fewer tools, the better. And you're kind of just looking for the color to know when you're ready to go.
Christina Ha:
Like a honey color.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, honey. Love. And then you're going to whip the caramel in the stand mixer to cool it and whip it up, and then you're going to add that butter.
Christina Ha:
Yep. Perfect.
Jessie Sheehan:
And that's a stand mixer, yes?
Christina Ha:
You can probably do a hand mixer.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Then there's also a pistachio ganache, which sounds delicious. What cookie do you usually match with pistachio?
Christina Ha:
For the shells, usually you could sub out 10% of the almond flour with something else-
Jessie Sheehan:
For pistachio?
Christina Ha:
So, we sub out about 10% with pistachio flour.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh, that sounds so good. The pistachio ganache is heavy cream, white chocolate. Do you guys have a favorite chocolate brand?
Christina Ha:
I really like Valrhona. I think it's not too sweet.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love Valrhona too. And the pistachio paste, you said pure is best rather than having a lot of additives in there.
Christina Ha:
Yeah. You just want to double check. Pistachio paste is super expensive.
Jessie Sheehan:
It is.
Christina Ha:
But sometimes it's actually made with almond paste instead, so it tastes like marzipan instead of pistachios.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Also, I've made it from scratch, just putting pistachios in the food processor with sugar. Would you ever do that, or no?
Christina Ha:
You could. Absolutely.
Jessie Sheehan:
So here it's easy. It's a ganache. You're heating your cream, pouring it over your paste, and your white chocolate and salt and then whipping by hand, or would you put it in a stand mixer?
Christina Ha:
You could do it by hand.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Would you guys at the bakery?
Christina Ha:
Yeah. That one, we actually usually use a burr mixer.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then there's this dulce de leche ganache. What would you do that one with cookie wise?
Christina Ha:
We do it with the party time, which actually it's a macaron, and then we take all of the macarons that didn't make the cut, and then we grind them back up and make these little... It looks like Funfetti, basically.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my God. I love.
Christina Ha:
So, that way it's got all these colors in it. It's a good time.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's really pretty. This one is heavy cream, milk chocolate, Valrhona again.
Christina Ha:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Dulce de leche. Is there a brand? Are you guys making it or you...
Christina Ha:
No, I don't know what brand... Oh, we use David Rosen.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Christina Ha:
But yeah, I think you could use any brand.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Dulce de leche and fleur de sel. And it's the same idea as the pistachio ganache. You're heating your cream, you're pouring it over your dulce de leche and your milk chocolate and you're whipping. And then chocolate ganache. Pretty classic. Is there a percentage of chocolate you like in this?
Christina Ha:
I like for it to be above 50%. You can obviously go much darker, but the butter that's in this recipe makes it much richer. It has a much smoother mouth feel. It tastes much richer than it is, so you don't have to go to your 70% or you're higher because it's going to have a very rich flavor to it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. For this one, you're making the ganache like you have in the other recipes, but when it's warm, but not hot, you're just whisking in the butter, which I assume you can do by hand, and then chill it before piping.
Christina Ha:
Yep.
Jessie Sheehan:
How do you make a vegan macaron? What do you do for the egg whites?
Christina Ha:
There are a lot of different options. Basically you're looking for something that has a protein source and water. I had tried it originally with aquafaba, which works fine.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you tell people what aquafaba is in case they don't know?
Christina Ha:
Yeah. Aquafaba is basically the liquid that comes when you boil chickpeas in water. So, it's this liquid that's left behind that kind of has the texture of egg whites. Usually, you can even get it if you buy a can of chickpeas and you just pour out the liquid. In that case, you would just want to boil it down until it closely resembles the way that egg whites look. One of the things I found with making it with aquafaba is that the meringue that you make expands too rapidly, too much in the oven, so you need to make it at a much lower temperature, but also it has a relatively short shelf life.
Jessie Sheehan:
Makes sense.
Christina Ha:
If you make it, you want to eat it usually that day or within 24 hours or else the filling will start to leak through. Or a lot of times people use more like a buttercream type of filling.
Jessie Sheehan:
What do you guys use if you can't use the aquafaba?
Christina Ha:
I prefer a potato protein, which is something you can buy online and you just get this powder and you mix it in with water. I add a little bit of xanthan gum to make sure that it's a little bit more stable and it's very similar. The end product is actually very, very similar. The only thing that I find about it is that I can't make large batches. I use the Italian meringue and everything, but I find that if I make the batch too big, then the quality goes down between the beginning and the end of the batch.
Jessie Sheehan:
Are the vegan ones super popular so you wish you could make a lot more of them, or are you kind of making a nice amount for the demand?
Christina Ha:
We're making a nice amount for the demand. I think that people are moving to be more plant-based. I think that we're all very conscious about the role that we play on the environment in terms of how we eat and what we eat. So, I love that it's an option. I love that it's there. I'm very, very proud of what we make. I love when people come in and they're like, "I have not been able to eat this in 10 years." And I'm like, "It tastes the same." And that makes me really excited. If we get to a point where we can make a lot more vegan macarons, I think that would be amazing.
Jessie Sheehan:
How far in advance can you make these fillings? Could you make the filling before you make the macaron?
Christina Ha:
You can make it months in advance.
Jessie Sheehan:
You can?
Christina Ha:
And just throw it in the freezer.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I love it. Could you also make the cookies, you have them on the sheet pan and then make the filling? Or would you suggest that the filling be ready when the macaron come out of the oven so they're not sitting around for too long?
Christina Ha:
I don't think it really matters. The one thing, especially if you did something like the buttercream, as soon as you finish mixing it, you could pipe it. The other ones though, they have to set up a little bit longer. So, if you're going to do it, I would say make the filling first and then make your macaron.
Jessie Sheehan:
And it will kind of set up by the time your macaron come out of the oven?
Christina Ha:
It should.
Jessie Sheehan:
How much filling goes into the middle of a macaron?
Christina Ha:
It's funny, when they trained us, they're like, "Oh, make sure that once you put it in, it's double the weight of the cookies." I think we do it by eye to make sure that you can see it.
Jessie Sheehan:
This part of macaron making is so interesting. Once they're filled, they have to go inside of the refrigerator for 24 hours. Can you explain why?
Christina Ha:
It's sort of the same concept as bread pudding, where it's better the more stale your bread is. The way I like it is that you cook the cookie all the way through, so it's a pretty dry cookie when it comes out of the oven.
So, you have this dry cookie, and then these fillings are relatively wet fillings in the grand scheme of things. When you put it on there and you give it time to mature, so the shells end up absorbing the flavor through the entire shell, and you want to give it time to do that. And so after about 24 hours, it'll be a different texture. You'll go from a very dry, hard cookie to something that is soft and that has flavor throughout the whole thing. That starts usually around 24 hours. If you could get to 48 or 72 hours, even better. The other thing that's amazing about them is you could also freeze them.
Jessie Sheehan:
After they're filled?
Christina Ha:
After they're filled. You could freeze them before they're filled, after they're filled. And so, one of the things that I used to love doing before we had our own bakery was I'd make these batches and maybe eat a few, but then freeze the rest so that if someone came over, and you're never expecting guests when they show up and you're like, "Oh, look at what I just got."
Jessie Sheehan:
"I just happened to have some macarons."
Christina Ha:
And you pull it out, you just let it sit out for about 20 minutes and let it get to room temp.
Jessie Sheehan:
Would you ever freeze them and serve them at the bakery?
Christina Ha:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Because I would think, “Why not?”
Christina Ha:
You can get pretty far ahead if you do that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Amazing. And what's the technique? I assume if you're freezing cookies, are you freezing them on the sheep pan and then once they're frozen, putting them into bins?
Christina Ha:
We have especially designed cases for them.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, beautiful.
Christina Ha:
So, we pack everything up and then you can take that and you can freeze it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, amazing. And do you prefer to freeze them before they're filled?
Christina Ha:
I usually don't. I usually prefer after filling them.
Jessie Sheehan:
Because then it's so easy.
Christina Ha:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. Would you fill them, do the 24 hours in the fridge so you know the texture's right, and then freeze them?
Christina Ha:
I think that's probably the easiest way to go, but sometimes you don't have the 24 hours or sometimes you know that right now I'm really busy. I don't want to babysit this. And you could just take them and move them from the freezer to the fridge and then serve them the next day.
Jessie Sheehan:
Got you. Got you. Can you tell us about the character macarons that I saw on the site? They're just so adorable.
Christina Ha:
A couple of years ago, I think I started to see that other people were making these different shaped ones, and I was like, "I want to do that too." And so just, at that time, I think that happened right around the time that we started Meow Parlour. We started off by making just cat-shaped ones. They were just regular circles and we put little ears on them and then we drew in their faces. I think if you go back far enough, you can see things have changed.
People are putting a little bit more time into it and are making it very beautiful, very intricate. For cases like that, if I'm going to do that, it ends up having to sit for a really long time while you're doing it, because it could be like, I'm doing one part of it and I'm going to use the same color, but you need to see a distinct thing. Then I have to let it dry completely before doing another layer on top of it. So, in that case, I would recommend only really using silpats for baking them.
This is kind of a testament. This one is like you should probably use an Italian meringue for it, but also I let it sit out for a really long time before I bake it, just to make sure that all of the parts are dry because you're layering on top of each other.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right. That's how you make the shapes to make... So, you're piping the meringue, but then you're piping these little ears and then drawing on it?
Christina Ha:
Yeah. Sometimes. It depends on what it is. Sometimes we'll draw on it. Sometimes we'll use royal icing afterwards. It depends on the design. I think if I'm doing eyes afterwards, I like to do it in royal icing, but whiskers don't look as nice in royal icing. So, if you just use a very fine pen, that comes out a lot nicer.
I think mastering the circle shape is probably important, but once you get past that, I don't think macarons are all that scary anymore. Once you get past that, then there's a whole new set of challenges that you could do. You could be like, "I'm going to do different shapes. I'm going to make characters. I'm going to do all these different things." And I think that's the thing that's really fun about it.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. I have learned so much. I can't wait to make them. But before we say goodbye, I did just want to tell you my cat story.
Christina Ha:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Which is that, please don't hate me, but I was never a cat person. I was always a dog person. I didn't understand cats. And my teenager was desperate for a cat, and I was like, "Absolutely not. I'm not getting a cat." I finally broke down last year. We got him a cat. He's allergic. My husband's allergic.
So, we got in a cat called a Bengal, which is a hypoallergenic cat. And oh my gosh, Christina, I'm so madly in love with him. I mean, I'm getting teary. I love my cat so much, but I just want to tell you that I'm converted and I'm going to come to Meow Parlour and just hang out please, because now I'm a cat person.
Christina Ha:
Please.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Christina Ha:
Cheat on your cat with our cats.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, I know. Oh my God, that is so scary. But wait, maybe it would be nice because then I'd come home and I'd smell like cats and Ray would be like, "Where was mom?" Anyway, thank you so much for chatting with me, Christina. I loved talking about macaron with you, and I just wanted to tell you that you're my cherry pie.
Christina Ha:
Aw, thank you.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Le Creuset and California Prunes for sponsoring today's episode. Don't forget to subscribe to She's My Cherry Pie on your favorite podcast platform, and tell your baking buddies about us. She's My Cherry Pie is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network and is recorded at CityVox Studios in Manhattan. Our producers are Kerry Diamond and Catherine Baker, and our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie, and happy baking.