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Saturday, July 23, 2011

Sweet Treats Saturday: Chocolate Macarons

Ever since I made the peanut butter macarons a few months ago, I've had macarons on the mind.  I ordered the book Macarons by Berengere Abraham.  The instructions made macaron making look so simple, but unfortunately, my first attempt failed.

I made the chocolate macarons with chocolate ganache filling, and the instructions specified to add the cocoa powder to the egg white mixture 'until evenly dispersed.'  I flipped back and forth through the book hoping for further instructions. It seemed like adding the cocoa powder to the egg whites would be too much. Yup, that was the case.  As soon as I added the cocoa powder, the whole thing deflated.  Frustrated, I returned back to my search in the friendly blogoverse. I referred back to my old macaron recipe and back to my original inspiration, David Lebovitz.


I kept with the original ganache recipe (from the book) as I had already made it.

Chocolate Ganache
By Berengere Abraham

Ingredients:
6 oz dark chocolate
1 1/4 cups whipping cream

In a double boiler (or a bowl over simmering water), melt the chocolate.  Pour in the cream and mix until well blended.  Remove from heat and refrigerate until needed.

Just made ganache.

Ganache refrigerated while the macarons were made, during the rest, and the baking (approx. 3 hours)


French Chocolate Macarons
By David Lebovitz, slight modifications by me

Ingredients:
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup powdered almonds (50g sliced almonds)
3 tbsps unsweetened cocoa powder
2 large egg whites, room temperature
5 tbsps granulated sugar

Line baking sheets with parchment paper or a silpat.

Grind together the powdered sugar, almonds and cocoa powder until a fine grind.  There should be no lumps.

With an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until they are foamy and double in size.  They should be starting to hold their shape.  While whipping, gradually beat in the granulated sugar until stiff peaks are formed (about two more minutes).

Love it

Carefully fold in the dry ingredients in two batches into the egg white mixture.  When the mixture is smooth and there are no streaks of egg white, stop folding and pour into a prepped pastry bag.

Beginning to fold the powdered mixture into the egg whites

Pipe the batter onto the lined baking sheets into small circles (about 1 tbsp of batter per circle).

Just piped

David Lebovitz's recipe states to rap the sheet on the counter and place into the oven.  Based on my experiences with my previous macarons and some extra time on my hands, I decided to let them sit at room temperature for a little over an hour.

Sat on the counter for about an hour and a half

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Bake the macarons for 10-12 minutes.  Watch them carefully so that the tops don't crack.

Baked

Let cool completely before removing from the baking sheet.

A thing of beauty


To assemble the macarons:

Once they are fully cooled, pipe or spread the chocolate ganache onto half of the macaron shells.  Match up with the other half of the macarons.  Store in an airtight container.

Gently pipe the ganache onto one half
Pieces with the filling. Just add the tops!

2 comments:

  1. These look gorgeous! I want to make macarons, and I even bought a cookbook just for it, but I'm not sure what is keeping me from making them. After seeing your post, and how pretty they are, I think I will give it a try. I found your post on Nifty Thrifty Sunday. Thanks for inspiring me!!

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  2. Wow Christine! These look amazing!! Thanks for all the tips - I can't wait to give them a try!
    Thanks for linking up to Think Pink Sundays - I featured these tonight on FB & Twitter!

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