Maca-swoon.

They are typically pastel in colour.

They are slightly chewy though delicate in flavour.

In fact, they can come in a variety of flavours.

They are French in origin, though this is debated by the Italians.

They melt my heart whenever I look at them.

They are, the macaroon.

To me, macaroons as absolutely gorgeous to look at, one cannot pass by their sugary beauty. They adorn the cover of Delicious magazine this month and being frivolous in spirit, I picked up a copy and intend to try my hand in making them.

The flavours perhaps shall be chocolate, strawberry and vanilla though once I have mastered the basics, maybe I can take a page out of celebrity macaroon chef Adriano Zumbo.

Zumbo is based in Sydney's Balmain, and has a hole-in-the-wall patisserie that is filled with tarts, cakes and of course, macaroons. Though I have never been there, I have read about it extensively, all from my London living room- such is the power of the written word on sugar. I intend to visit when I get back, though if the articles written are to be believed, haste is to be had as dawdlers miss out due to his powerful reputation.

If my intentions of making macaroons where to be in question, they were reaffirmed when reading the free magazine Stylist (damn good read when travelling on the tube on Wednesday morning). They wrote about the L'atelier des Chefs, a cookery school in London that is hosting 2 hr macaroon-making classes- bliss.

Macaroons seem like special occcasion food, though they don't seem that difficult. Maybe they should replace biscuits with our tea. Imagine a world.

If you would like to explore more, perhaps a good place to start is Ladurée - they claim to sell 15 000 macaroons every day.

NB: When researching macaroons, I came across a blog gem http://www.davidlebovitz.com/. Food heaven in Paris.

Another NB: There are variations in the spelling of macaroons (macarons).