Yesterday i was shopping some stuff with my sister in a “SPAR” close to home. Some food – nothing special. When i saw a thing and gave me a heart attack. It does bother me since then so i made a couple of calculations and i decided to write a post about it.

In Hungary we have a kindof  “open fridge” in the supermarkets where u can find cheese and meat products in big pieces – and on the other side of the line u have a (not always) lovely lady helping u out if u want her to cut some  stuff off… well – next to this place u can find some “Factory made sweets” sitting and waiting u in the bright shelf of the fridge. This was the shocking place where i saw a price label… 260 forint /darab. It was right in front of the tray of macarons. This means that one piece of this treat costs 0.81 euro.

Well – u must think  how hilariously cheap is this considering the amount of work u need to put in these french beauties… to make it supersexy. Let me tell u the truth. It is shockingly expensive (and the ones in the shop were not sexy at all).

Soooooo… lets start some calculations.

I do use my basic macaron récipe which works with  an italian meringue (sugar syrup) and i use average prices from an average hungarian supermarket for an average quality. Can be cheaper but much more expensive as well.

Lets start with the ground almond – for my récipe i need 200 g which cost 1400 forint. I need the same amount of icing sugar as well with a price of 92 forint. To make the sugar syrup i use 240g caster sugar (72 forint) and about 50 g of wáter (3,5 forint). Only thing left: the egg whites. Here is almost impossible to find and buy pasteurized egg whites so i count with normal whole eggs – u gonna have leftover yolks (however its not counted in the price). So approx your whites cost 82 forint. At this point u need to have 1649,5 forint whats 5,13 euro. BUT! Out of this basic récipe i can bake approx. 100 beautiful macarons – what means that 1 little piece costs 16,495 forint. This is for the Shell.

What to put inside? I checked out 2 options: the easy way to get some fruty jam for the filling (an average jam costs around 600 forint – one piece would not need more amount than 6 forint) or the easiest chocolate ganache u can make out of cream and chocolate (cheap versión with normal chocolate is 7 forint while one with luxury quality costs 13 forint for one piece of macaron).

After this we can claim: one single piece of macaron can costs from 22,495 to 29,495 forint. ONE SINGLE BITE OF SWEET WITH ITS FILLING.

The love of Paris, the kiss from my passion. Check this out: its between 0.07 and 0.09 euro.

Footnote: my calculations do not include bills (gas, electricity).

So i start my story again: i saw a very shocking price in a supermarket yesterday. U can buy one piece of macaron for 260 forint (0,81 euro). What really costs 23 forint (0,07 euro).

Is there anyone who is thinking the same as me? LETS OPEN A MACARON SHOP!!!!!!!!