Jennie Esler’s business idea was born when she took her first bit of a macaron while traveling. When she returned to Duluth, she couldn’t find anything that rivaled it.

So eventually, she started Marcie’s Mackies.

“I am a home baker. I have my cottage license,” Esler said. “And I make small batch unique macarons.”

She mostly sells at markets and other events and sometimes sells on Facebook.

The process of making macarons requires an exactitude: eggs should be bought a few days in advance and are at room temperature, the oven must be at precisely 300 degrees, no yolk can be mixed in with the egg whites, and the list goes on.

You also have to be able to multitask. While a sugar syrup is boiling on the stove, the eggs need to be whipped in a stand mixer.

“You have to boil this at the same rate that you start whipping your egg whites,” Esler said, gesturing to a small saucepan with sugar and water on the stove. “This needs to reach 115 degrees Celsius at about the same time that this reaches I call seafoam egg whites.”

Her baking business was named after her daughter.

“Both of my kids are characters. But my daughter, there’s a little extra something,” she said. “And with my little mascot of a very girly tattoo and a very cute, girly macaron, Marcie’s Mackies was born.”

Esler is hoping to partner with a local business that has a commercial kitchen space to expand what she can offer.