Pierre Herme Macaron Cookbook

[TexasMBA02]

After batting about .500 with my previous approach to macarons, I came across Pierre Herme's base recipe online.  After two flawless batches of macarons, I've been re-energized to continue to work at mastering them.  Specifically, I want to try more of his recipes.  My conundrum is that he has, as far as I can tell, two macaron cookbooks and I don't know which one I should get.  I can't tell if one is just an updated version of the other or a reissue or what the differences really are.  I was hoping somebody had some insight.  I have searched online and haven't seen both books referenced in the same context or contrasted at all.

 

This one appears to be older.

 

And this one appears to be the newer of the two.

 

Any insight would be helpful.

 

Thanks,

 

[teonzo]

I have the old French release, titled "Macaron" (without the final S) and with the black cover. Never had the other release on hand, so I never compared them.
Having said that, I heard that the one with the purple cover is an expanded reissue, has the same content of the first one, plus some added recipes. I checked the number of pages on Amazon and in fact the purple one has about 30 pages more than my copy.
Be careful that there is also the French edition with the same cover.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[TexasMBA02]

Great. Thank you. That is super helpful. 

[JeanneCake]

Yes the one with the black cover was initially released in French, and then later in English.  The purple one is a later edition, assumes a basic level of macaron skill (there's a CD and then a loose few pages with the basic instruction for the shells) and expands into newer, perhaps somewhat more intricate, flavors.

 

When I first got the black book, I had amazing success with macaron; lately not so much.  My shells are hollow   I wish there was a troubleshooting guide LOL!

[Avachocolate]

I have both...get the newer one, has more recipes :-)

Both are great though, depending on where you buy it the first one may be cheaper, you would be fine with that also...has all the info you need for successful macaron making.