Chocolate Macarons

Last week I went to Leicester for the weekend to visit my familly, so didn't have time to do any baking really. So this week I thought I could challenge myself, and make some macarons! I chose chocolate macarons, as I really wanted to buy some bournville cocoa powder, it makes the nicest hot chocolate and I haven't used it in ages. The cadbury's take over last week reminded me it existed. Now, the only macarons I have even seen are in cook books (and on mastechef!), so to be honest I was preparing myself for an almighty failure. But I was presently suprised! They had a nice crispy shell, chewy interior, and were very light. But there is definitely room for some improvement. I didn't manage to produce the puffy foot at the base of the macaron. I would have preferred them to have been shinier too. I don't think I will use a chocolate ganache filling again, as it was just too hard to spread on to the macarons, and ended up pushing my finger through a few of them, whoops! The recipe I followed was from Nigellas domestic godess cook book.


Ingredients
for the macarons
250g icing sugar
125g ground almonds
25g cocoa powder (I used bournville, because it's awesome)
4 Large egg whites
25g Caster sugar
for ze ganache filling
90ml double cream
150g plain chocolate (I used green and blacks, again, because it's awesome
45g unsalted butter (I used president french butter, because it was only a £1, and because it's awesome, its the first time I've tried it, and I don't think I'll be going back to tescos own brand)

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees.

Sift the icing sugar, ground almonds and cocoa powder into a bowl, and put to one side until needed. Whisk the egg whites in a super clean bowl until they form soft peaks. Sprinkle the caster sugar on to the whites, and continue whisking until the form stiff peaks. (stiff, but not dry, they should be nice and shiny). At this point fold in the dry ingredients with a large metal spoon, do this gradually with a cutting motion.

Carefully spoon the mixure into a piping bag, and pipe on to a baking tray lined with grease proof paper. The rounds should be approximately 5cm, and leave space for any spreading. Leave them for about half an hour to form a skin on the macarons, this will guarantee a nice crunchy top, and a chewy centre. Bake for 12 minutes.

Before they went in the oven

Meanwhile, make the ganache by melting the ingredients in a pan, on a very low heat. This should produce a very shiny runny mixture, leave in the fridge until it becomes spreadable.

Once the macarons are cooled, spread with the ganache and sandwich together (think posh custard cream/ bourbon biscuit)
Ta-da!


Scrumpadoocious!