Last night I had the most stress-free macaron making day ever! Crazy how when you're not under a time crunch, baking seems so much more relaxing.
For these macarons, I used a basic macaron recipe. This easy macaron recipe is similar to the one that I use except my macaron recipe makes about 160 shells which makes 80 completed macarons. As mentioned in previous posts, I cannot give out the recipe I have as it is not mine to distribute. However, I can share with you the little tips and tricks that I use to make sure I get the perfect little 'feet' and smooth shell every time.
You may use any macaron recipe you like, but make sure that your recipe contains the following:
For the mint chocolate ganache filling (note: I did not use mint chocolate because I thought the mint would come out more in the shells. If I were to do them again, I would make sure to use mint chocolate if you really want that minty flavour. Make sure to use dark as well as it will help cut through the sweetness of the shell):
Approximately two bars or equivalent of dark mint chocolate (I find that Lindt is the best quality you can find at your average super market and it isn't overly expensive. Making macarons is a tough and laborious task though so I would say if you are only going to make these once a year, be sure to use the best quality chocolate you can find!)
Softened room temperature butter
Whipping cream
For the shells:
Ingredients:
Almond flour (which is simply just ground almonds; you can make this yourself, but it's very time consuming and it can alter the way your macarons will turn out)
Icing sugar
Granulated sugar
Water
Aged egg whites (you should age them for seven days, but if you can't, it's not a big deal; I have found that if you age them for only three or four days, they turn out just fine, but if you don't have a good stand mixer, then your egg whites won't whip up nicely)
Instant coffee (I used instant Starbucks Peppermint Mocha)
Optional gel food colouring
These are only some of the ingredients and tools; I took the picture before I was actually done laying things out---silly me!
Tools:
For the filling:
Digital scale (do not try to convert the recipe into cups; this will alter the recipe completely although the measurements are close, they need to be EXACT)
Heat proof bowl
Sauce pan
Whisk
Glass pan
Saran wrap
For the shells:
Digital scale
Large bowl
Food processor
Large baking sieve
Kitchen Aid Mixer (or any other stand mixer)
Spatula
Small bowl(s)
Large whisk
Heavy duty baking pans (not the ones that you use to make cookies on; these ones are literally heavy)
Oven
Stove
Digital candy thermometer
I would re-write the method, but the method previously mentioned recipe and method would work well with a few little tweaks here and there. Here are some tips:
For the ganache:
With any ganache recipe, make sure to melt the chocolate in a heat proof bowl over a simmering pot of water. While the chocolate is melting, heat the whipping cream in a pot on medium heat until it boils. As soon as soon as you see large boiling bubbles, take the pot off the heat and stir it in three parts into the melted chocolate. Once the chocolate and whipping cream are fully incorporated, take the chopped up pieces of room temperature butter and whisk them in. At this point you want to whip super vigorously. Keep whipping until the butter is fully incorporated and the ganache feels slightly thickened. Pour the ganache into a shallow glass pan and place saran wrap directly onto the ganache to ensure that a skin does not form on the ganache.
For the shells:
Before placing the icing sugar and almond flour through the sieve, make sure to process the almonds in a food processor. Shake the food processor every now and then and scrape the sides of the processor with a spatula. Pulse and shake the food processor so that the almonds are fully ground and appear almost powdery. Although the almond flour appears to be fairly ground up when you first buy it in the bag, you want to make sure that all of the little chunks are gone. If you ever see a macaron shell with bumps and lumps, it is because this step has been skipped. It makes for an unpleasant and improper macaron shell texture.
After grounding up the almonds once more, incorporate the icing sugar and the instant coffee powder. Shake this up once more in the food processor. Your arms may hurt after picking up your food processor, but most food processors can't process everything evenly all the time (consider this your work out before you eat the macarons).
After processing all of the dry ingredients, then put it through a sieve.
In the previously mentioned method, they use the French meringue method which means there is no boiling of water and sugar. Although I do use this method for making meringues, I generally use the method of boiling sugar and water together first when making macarons because this is much more reliable than the French method.
Boil the sugar and water on the stove. While the sugar and water is boiling, make sure to place half of the egg whites into your stand mixer. When the boiling water and sugar gets to 239 degrees F (use a digital candy thermometer; don't try to fiddle around with an analog one), turn on the stand mixer to a medium high speed. Once the boiling water and sugar gets to 244 degrees F, take it off the stove, turn up the mixer on high and slowly pour the sugar water into the egg whites. A small and constant stream should be coming from the pot. Once everything is incorporated, make sure to whip the egg whites for one minute on high and another minute on medium.
Incorporating the dry ingredients into the egg whites is the most difficult part. Over whipping, under whipping, it's all a nightmare! If you under mix at first, it is probably better than over mixing as you can't undo that. I still mess up the texture every now and then, especially when I am out of practice, but I always make sure to under mix a little bit. During the first incorporation of ingredients, it is okay if the mixture is still a bit thick. Let the mixture rest for thirty minutes loosely covered in plastic wrap. Mix it one more time. The batter should fall off the whisk slightly and mound up on the batter as it falls. After about thirty seconds, it should be incorporated back into the batter after falling. I test out the batter by piping out one or two onto the parchment. After a few minutes, if the batter still has a little bit of a peak, then the batter is too thick. If it is so soupy that it spreads out instantly, then it is too soupy and your macarons won't work out.
After piping out all of the batter, you may choose to sprinkle on some decorations or cocoa powder. Make sure you do this step before the skin has formed over your macarons as shown below:
Here are the macaron shells that have formed a skin after forty-five minutes. They have a matte finish as oppose to the shiny finish the above macarons had:
Place them in the oven at 350 degrees F for five minutes, turn the pan and bake them again at 330 degrees F for another five minutes. I guarantee if you do this right, you will get feet!
Fill up your completely cooled macaron shells with the mint chocolate gancache. The macarons cannot be eaten right away. You need to freeze them for two days, take the amount that you would like out of the freezer, let them thaw for forty-five minutes and enjoy!
These were a little bit more red in person, but for some reason they look very pink! Oh well, I am sure people won't mind eating pink-ish Christmas macarons.
Beautiful baking sweeties!
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