FAQs and French Baking Tips

Absolutely! See my collection of over 100 gluten free recipes. There are also low gluten recipes, which can be adapted easily to be made gluten free by replacing the regular flour with cornflour/cornstarch or rice flour, for example.

Although I have added measurements in cups for my American readers, please note these are there purely as a guide. I strongly urge you to bake and cook using grams like the French by WEIGHT, not volume (cups) - particularly for making macarons, tarts and other French pastries which are precise. This achieves consistent successful results in your cooking and baking.

Digital scales are inexpensive and an essential item in your kitchen. If you’re used to ounces, with digital scales you can simply switch the button over to grams and we’re all talking the same language.

For much more in detail, see my post explaining why I recommend digital scales.

Lining a round cake tin is simple with just baking parchment and scissors. There's no need to measure its size to fit perfectly:

• Cut out a square of parchment/baking paper that can fit the cake tin (turn it upside down to see the circumference best)
• From the centre of the tin, fold the paper in half - then in half again, half again twice until you have a thin triangle
• Then with scissors, cut the end of the paper triangle to go around the edge of the tin
• Open the paper out to a perfect circle that fits your cake tin.

I use good quality classic unsalted French butter known as ‘beurre doux’, with 82% fat. Why unsalted? As it’s easy to control the amount of salt used in the recipes.

In Brittany, for example, we typically use salted butter (beurre salé or demi-sel) with around 3% salt content for authentic recipes such as Palets Bretons, salted caramel sauce (caramel au beurre salé) and in the filling for salted caramel macarons. As I know it’s not often easy to find good French salted butter in the rest of the world, I use unsalted butter and add fleur de sel salt in order to get the closest possible.
So to get as close to our French recipes, please use European-style unsalted butter with 82% fat.

A vanilla bean/pod is preferable for many recipes – but are expensive. I often cheat and buy cheaper vanilla and steep them in rum in a jar to swell them – for more, see my tip how to store vanilla beans.

If you prefer to use extract or powder, then use it quite sparingly depending on the brand you use. I say use a teaspoon but taste the custard first. If it needs more, add more but better to dose carefully. If you add too much you can’t go backwards! Some brands use much more – see Nielsen Massey’s instructions.

Absolutely! As I’m British-French, I may use words a bit different if you’re in America. No worries, just refer to the Glossary of UK – USA baking terms if you’re not sure. I give our equivalents in France for UK and USA terms. Still can’t find what you’re looking for? Contact me.

At present, I’m completely on my own without a team to help as I’m working hard for you on this website to share my recipes for free as well as many updated Paris food guides. As a result, I have no extra time to give classes.

However, I am making free demonstration videos on my YouTube channel. So please do pop in and support me there by liking and subscribing.

For macarons, get my books! My macaron classes are detailed step-by-step in my first book, Mad About Macarons also in the macaron chapter and much more in Teatime in Paris: A Walk Through Easy Pâtisserie Recipes. 

Luckily Paris is becoming more aware of the rise in food allergies. Here are the main ones:

• Pâtisseries for Diabetics in Paris – see my new article with 4 boutiques in Paris;
• Gluten free pâtisseries: Chambelland, Maison Plume (Marais), and Helmut Newcake on weekends at Didier Fourreau near the Arc de Triomphe.

Ever since my pastry and chocolate tours in Paris, I have had this question so many times I wrote an article on it in detail:

What’s the difference between a macaron and a macaroon?

Don’t throw them away! They will still taste delicious. I have plenty recipes you can crush them up or use them to make:

• macaron tiramisu
• mini Ispahan macaron trifles or
• macaron berry trifle
• baked peaches
• crush them and decorate on a Bourdaloue tart

As for the cracked macarons, it’s included in a troubleshooting section in my book, Mad About Macarons. Many are easy to solve – it could be just down to your oven or even your egg whites!

I would be delighted for you to share!

However, the recipes and images on the website are ALL copyright Jill Colonna. If you wish to link to the recipes on the site, then please contact me with credit to Jill Colonna at MadAboutMacarons.com.

For the recipes in the books, Waverley Books by law has the copyright and license to publish them, so they are uniquely in the books. If you wish to use a recipe from either book, please contact Liz Small at Waverley Books (info(at)waverley-books.co.uk) first for permission. Many thanks!

Please contact my publisher, Waverley Books (The Gresham Publishing Company Ltd.), directly: info(at)waverley-books.co.uk or their UK distributors at BookSource.
For orders or enquiries Tel: +44 (0) 845 370 0067 or via Gardeners Books Wholesalers

Distributor for USA/Canada: Interlink Publishing.
Distributor in France: OLF via Relay H.

Contact me either via the Contact Form or by email jill(at)madaboutmacarons.com or directly under the relevant (recipe) post where I’ll be happy to answer you as soon as I can. Don’t forget I live in France so allow for the time difference.