cake du jour* - macaroon

Macaroons hover somewhere in the grey area between 'cake' and 'biscuit'. I have never had a macaroon that did not come from a shop, and can only guess that home made ones would taste of something other than synthetic almond plus rusk with a tang of cardboard. A good one is chewy on the inside, but the point of the macaroon as far as I have always been concerned is the rice paper on the bottom.

I am not entirely sure when the pursuit of cakes-with-paper-you-can-eat became something worth doing, and let's be clear: it isn't something I lay awake at night obsessing about, but there is something sort of special about the little disc which sucks the moisture from your tongue when you bite into a macaroon. I like it, and even though more exotic cakes beckon from behind the curved glass front of the baker's counter, a macaroon will always call to me.

*Yes, I know - it's been a while, hasn't it?