How I went from Tarmac to macaroons

Which is good news for Tony Patrick, aka Hull’s Macaronman, who’s adamant we’re talking macarons not macaroons – the latter, he says, are something entirely different. But more of that 
later.

What’s not in dispute is that Tony is fast gaining a national reputation for producing the very best examples of these dainty French delicacies. Word of his macarons has spread far and wide. They’re already on the menu of many of East Yorkshire’s top restaurants, have attracted the attention of a Michelin-starred chef in Liverpool and been hand- delivered to a hen party in London.

His latest success has come in the form of a BBC Good Food Show bursary award, which recognises producers of the very best British speciality foods. As part of the process his macarons had to undergo a rigorous tasting; the result being that Tony has been invited to attend the Good Food Show’s spring event in Harrogate next weekend.

It means he will be rubbing shoulders with celebrity chefs Michel Roux Jr, Tom Kerridge and The Hairy Bikers as well as Great British Bake Off host Paul Hollywood. Is he worried Mary Berry’s sharp-tongued co-judge will be a hard man to please? Not at all; in fact, he relishes the opportunity to put his hand-made macarons, which currently come in 30 different flavours, into one of the biggest shop windows of all.

“I’ll be working flat out the week before the Harrogate show to ensure we have enough and they all look their very best. I’m expecting to sell at least a thousand macarons every day I’m there,” he says.

Tony’s route to the top of this particular confectionary tree has been far from traditional. “I’ve had no formal training and the only cookery lesson I’ve ever had was at junior school,” he says. It’s a statement issued almost as a badge of pride, although he admits he has “always been a serious foodie”.

“I’ve always done all the cooking at home and have a serious obsession with cookery books and cookery programmes on TV. In fact, my idea came originally from watching television and thinking ‘I could do that’.

Picking one of his cookery books at random, it turned out to be recipes from the world-famous Ladurée tea shop in Paris, often credited with sticking two of the meringue discs together with a creamy ganache as a filling. To see them filling the window of their Champs-Élysées shop is, says Tony, “almost an excursion into fantasy”.

Although the recipe is relatively simple (ground almonds, free-range egg whites, icing sugar), making macarons is, he says, labour-intensive. “Made properly it’s a time-consuming process, which is why not many people are making them, and they can spoil easily.

“I often joke I’ve got the best-fed dustbin in East Yorkshire but I’m a perfectionist and pride myself on producing the perfect macaron. They have to be right or I won’t let them out of the kitchen.