Woke up early today despite
partying the night away on New Year’s Eve. I was just too excited about filling
my macarons. Love kicking off the New Year with some baking! My macaron book
has got me really excited about all the various flavours and fillings I will
hopefully get to make one day, but I played it a bit safe by recreating a
chocolate ganache recipe I learned in my macaron class. I am easily enticed by
sure-fire recipes that I get to see flourish right in front of me. I apologize,
but I can’t post the exact recipe that I used or the exact method because I
learned it from the macaron class I took. There are several great chocolate
ganache recipes out there though so look one up and keep following along!
The chocolate ganache recipe I used is made with chocolate, whipping
cream and unsalted butter. My macaron teacher forbade the whole class from
using chocolate chips for this recipe. She had said that if you are going to
make macarons, which are very labour and time intensive, then you should use
the best quality ingredients that you can find. I totally agree with this
philosophy. Needless to say I broke that rule on my first go. I just didn’t
want to spend a copious amount of money on Ecuadorian chocolate (although I
will vouch for the fact that it was very delicious) when there was a
possibility that I could have messed up the macarons. I ended up using
Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate chips and it actually ended up tasting
delicious in the macarons. I would suggest using a dark chocolate, although you
can use milk, because the slight bitterness of the dark chocolate compliments
the sweetness of the macaron shell itself. Next time I make macarons with
chocolate ganache, I will probably go for the gusto and get some Ecuadorian
chocolate. I would feel too guilty using chocolate chips again since my teacher
was vehemently opposed to it.
The chocolate ganache needed to
chill for a couple of hours before use. I found that this chilling time may
have been a bit too long as the chocolate was really hard to handle at first. I
put it in the piping bag and tried to mush the chocolate around with my hand,
but what ended up happening was that it was super warm at the top of the piping
bag and still cold at the bottom. Next time, I will just chill the ganache for
a bit shorter of a time period. Eventually, I managed to get the temperatures
evened out and it was ready for piping. It was actually really difficult to a)
match the top and bottom macaron shells so that they were approximately the
same size and b) put the correct amount of filling into each macaron. I guess I
will have to practice this more! I also noticed that the chocolate ganache
seemed to melt fairly quickly so I ended up getting some chocolate on my
beautiful pink macaron shells (not a happy baker about that one). As soon as I
finished piping everything, my macarons were complete and I shoved them into
the freezer in Ziploc containers. They will stay fresh there for about 2-3
months.
I will use these particular
macarons for my friend, Pat’s (of Pink Polo Events), Mad Pink Party. It is an
Alice in Wonderland themed cocktail party which I absolutely love. He requested
that everything be pink so I am going to whip up some pink meringues, some more
pink macarons and some ‘eat me’ sugar cookies. I will also be catering the hors
d’oeuvres as well (not something I normally do, but ‘twas a special request!)
Beautiful
Baking Fellow Sweeties
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