Macaron Baking Class with a French Pastry Chef Paris

The Opera district and the Boulevard Haussmann department store

The class takes place in the Appartement Lafayette, a teaching kitchen on the third floor of the main building of the famous department store at 40 Boulevard Haussmann, opened in 1912 and known for its Art Nouveau stained-glass dome rising about 43 metres above the shop floor. The address sits in the Opera district, the heart of nineteenth-century Paris, with the Palais Garnier opera house a short walk away. Before or after your macaron class the building itself is worth a look: the dome, the gilded balconies and the rooftop terrace with a view towards the Eiffel Tower, open without charge.

How to get to the macaron class: take metro line 7 or 9 to Chaussée d'Antin–La Fayette, line 3, 7 or 8 to Opéra, or RER A to Auber; all are two to five minutes on foot from the entrance. Inside, take the lift to the third floor and look for the workshop beside the concierge desk.

Making the almond macaron shells

The first part of this pastry class in Paris is the shell, the step that defeats most people in their own kitchens. The chef explains the three ingredients that matter, ground almonds, icing sugar and an egg-white meringue, and demonstrates the macaronage, the folding movement that gives the batter the glossy ribbon texture it needs. Too little folding and the shells crack; too much and they spread flat. You then fill a piping bag, pipe rounds of equal size on the baking mat, tap the tray to release air bubbles and let the shells rest until a skin forms, which is what creates the frilly foot during baking.

This is the hands-on heart of the macaron making workshop and takes roughly forty minutes including baking. The chef demonstrates at the bench and then walks the kitchen correcting each tray, so a complete beginner gets the same result as someone who has tried before. Everything is provided, from apron to piping bags, with ingredients from local organic producers.

The ganache, the assembly and the tasting

While the shells cool, the second stage of the macaron baking class begins: the filling. The group prepares a ganache in the two flavours that please almost everyone, dark chocolate and pistachio, by heating cream, pouring it over chopped chocolate or pistachio paste and stirring until it is smooth and thick enough to pipe. The chef explains how the ratio of cream to chocolate changes the texture, and how long a finished macaron should rest in the fridge before it is at its best.

You then pair the shells by size, pipe a dot of ganache on one and press the other gently on top. By the end of the ninety minutes every participant has at least four finished macarons to eat with the group or to carry away in a box, plus two written recipes for the shells and the ganache so you can repeat the process in your own kitchen. Allergens used in the class are egg, dairy, dark chocolate, almonds and pistachios.

Around the class: Palais Garnier, the covered passages and the Grands Boulevards

A cooking class in Paris fits naturally into a day in the city centre. The Palais Garnier, the opera house completed in 1875 with its gilded facade and grand marble staircase, is three minutes away and can be visited inside most days from 10:00 to 17:00, except on performance afternoons. South of the boulevard run the covered passages of the 1820s and 1830s, Passage Jouffroy and Passage des Panoramas among them, glass-roofed arcades of bookshops, toy shops and tea rooms that are perfect on a rainy day. The Grands Boulevards themselves, lined with trees and Haussmann-era facades, are the classic Parisian promenade.

The 10:30 class ends at midday, which leaves the afternoon for the Louvre, the Tuileries or shopping along the boulevards; the 17:00 class ends in time for dinner nearby. If you are looking for things to do in Paris for families with teenagers, this is one of the easiest answers: ninety minutes of concentration, a sweet result and a central location connected to every metro line you need.