Paris Macaron Class for Kids

One of my daughter’s favorite memories of our Paris Family Vacation was getting to attend a Macaron Class for Kids in Paris, led by a French pastry chef at Galeries Lafayette.

 

Paris Baking Class for Kids

Now that Ella is a bit older, I’m starting to involve her more in our trip planning.

While I provide her with kid-appropriate tour books and plenty of my own ideas, her travel inspiration mostly comes from two sources:

Anthony Bourdain.

And, Travel Man.

For those unfamiliar with Travel Man, you seriously need to check him out. He’s a British actor (Richard Ayoade from the IT Crowd) who brings comedic friends with him on short 2-3 day vacations all around the world and nearly every episode has us in stitches. We have to rewatch the episodes so we actually catch everything!

During his Paris episode, Richard made macarons under the tutelage of a French pastry chef and made his own (interesting) customized perfume.

So, naturally, when it came to planning our Parisian vacation, Ella’s wishes were to take a macaron baking class and to make her own customized perfume.

While there are many opportunities for kids to take a baking class in Paris, finding a macaron class was proving exceptionally hard – especially for a 7 year old as many classes were for ages 10+

I wasn’t sure that I was going to able to swing both, but we really lucked out – finding a macaron baking class at Galeries Lafayette and a custom perfume workshop at Maison Candora.

(You can read about our perfume making experience here.)

 

Paris Macaron Class for Kids

Every Wednesday, Galeries Lafayette hosts a family macaron workshop from 10-11:30AM (though plan to give a bit of time for the class to go over). Instruction is done in English.

Children ages 5-12 can sign up to be pastry chefs for the day, along with a paid, supervising adult.

Children are 15€ and adults are 49€  The price includes the class and two small boxes of macarons to take home. (To compare, the majority of children’s classes that I found were 99€ to 129€ per child.)

I think it’s important to note that the class is a mixture of demonstration and participation.

We watched the instructor make the macaron dough and had the opportunity to help pipe the dough onto the prepared cookie sheets.

Then, we made our own fillings from scratch and filled pre-baked macaron cookies.

I wasn’t sure if that was going to be a thorough enough experience for Ella, who is used to baking at home with me, but it ended up being the perfect amount. Macarons are time consuming to make; just making the fillings and filling the baked macaron shells ended up being about 30-40 minutes, and the total experience ended up being close to two hours.

A shortened baking class is definitely preferable on vacation, especially if you want to plan anything else for that day. She was able to focus and enjoy the class, despite only arriving in Paris the day before, and I think if the class had been any longer she might have hit her patience limit and I would have had to start correcting her, which no parent wants to have to do on vacation.

I have a lot of experience baking macarons and even I learned a few new things during the class.

Ella loved being able to do all of her steps independently, and getting to bring home her macarons to share. We also got pretty copies of the macaron recipes we made so that we can make them again!

The teacher was also really observant and made time to speak to each participant, making them feel special and appreciated, which is so important when children are learning something new. Ella left feeling like a real, accomplished chef.

Oh, and the macarons?

Perfection.

Be sure to PIN THIS POST for your future Paris Vacation planning.

Do you have any questions about the children’s macaron baking class at Galeries Lafayette that I didn’t answer in this post? Leave me a comment and I’ll respond as soon as I can.

For more Paris adventures with kids, check out our Hot Air Balloon Ride over Paris or our Secret Food Tour in Paris.