Juli Ward makes a wide variety of delicious and decorative macarons from her home kitchen in Laurie. Rural baker creates beautiful macarons by Paul Newton | pnewton@ruralmissouri.coop he small French pastries had consumed Juli Ward's home kitchen. Juli and her pastry partner - Kylianne Wilmering - were busy for weeks prepping these precise cookies - 2,000 of them - for the Lake of the Ozarks Food Truck Festival in September. Juli carefully handled the macaronage - folding the dry ingredients into the wet while making macarons - ensuring they passed the figure eight test for the proper consistency. Kylianne matched sets of baked macarons and piped in delicious fillings - one by one until they reached 2,000. " That was by far our largest offering since we started, " says Juli. " We had about 250 hours put into it by the time we had done it all. " Juli has made macarons for more than four years through her business, Aunt JuJu Macarons. The home baker makes most of her sweets from inside her rural Laurie kitchen ranging from special orders of a few dozen for retirement and birthday parties to weddings and larger gatherings - like FEBRUARY 2025 | RURALMISSOURI.COOP 33 Thttp://www.RURALMISSOURI.COOP