By Ms. Taste
On a high after my first winning batch of macarons, I cracked four eggs and aged the egg whites over the work week in anticipation for a mega macaron making session on Friday night.
But when Friday rolled by, Mr. Taste spilt most of my egg whites over the kitchen counter when I was downstairs buying dinner. Extremely upset, I tried to make the most of the situation and whipped out my measuring cups to see if I could salvage enough for one batch. Lucky for me (and Mr. Taste), there was just enough.
And so I decided to make chocolate macarons. A little reluctant to try a foreign recipe, I stuck with my
basic macaron recipe and added 15 grams of cocoa powder. I was extremely happy with the results – the macarons had perfect feet, flat tops and a crispy shell. I’m on a macaron roll!
Chocolate Macarons
65 grams Almond Meal
80 grams Icing Sugar
40 grams Sugar
15 grams Cocoa Powder
50 grams Egg White
1. Heat the oven to 160°C. Line the baking tray with a baking mat or two sheets of baking paper.
2. Blend the almond meal, cocoa powder and icing sugar in a processor, making sure the mixture is well blended and fine. Then pass this mixture through a fine sieve, making sure that there are no lumps left.
3. For the egg whites: make sure the bowl you use is extremely clean. The egg whites should be at room temperature, before you start beating, add a few drops of lemon juice or a pinch of salt. Beat on a medium speed, and slowly add the sugar spoon by spoon. Increase the speed after a minute, beating on high speed for 4 minutes or untill strong peaks have formed. Make sure that the eggs hold firm peaks, like a bird’s beak!
4. Sprinkle the dry mixture spoon by spoon over the egg whites. Blend this mixture very slowly with a spatula, just bend and not beat, else the whites will flop over.
5. While mixing you should be gentle making sure not to overmix, as you’d rather have an undermixed batter than a cakey overmixed batter. Normally, I turn the spatula in 30-40 circular motions depending on the quantity.
6. The best way to know whether the batter is ready, is to look for these signs:
When you started off, the batter was firm and was holding its shape. After mixing for subsequent minutes, when you lift the batter it should fall in ribbons, should be shiny and satiny. You should not be able to see any of the egg white.
7. Fill in this mixture in a piping bag and use a 8-10 mm round tip. Pipe blobs of batter on the circled baking sheet, make sure you are holding the piping back perpendicular to the sheet. Pipe in just about enough to cover the circles you made, or if you were lazy, pipe the size of macaron you would want remember that the batter usually spreads about 1 cm.
8. Leave the piped batter in a dry warm place for minimum 20 minutes so as to develop a thin cover. The macarons should be dry to touch before going in the oven.
9. In the oven, place the tray in the middle, keep another tray below the with the macaron tray.
10. Within 5 minutes the feet will start forming, and at the 7th or 8th minute if the macarons start to brown unevenly, rotate the baking tray. Bake for another 3-4 minutes, however, another trick to check if they are done, is to softly push the macaron, if the feet move a bit. The total time should be 10-11 minutes at 150-160°C
11. Remove the tray from the oven, take off the baking sheet and place on a wet surface for a couple of seconds so as to stop the baking process. You can do so by placing the baking sheet on a wet piece of cloth flattened out.
12. After a couple of minutes, peel the macaron off the sheet and place them upside down on a wire rack. If they do not peel or come off easily, pop them back into the oven for a couple of minutes.
NB – I also tried the below recipe with new eggs aged overnight. The macaron shells turned out very bumpy and I ended up with fluffy tutu feet which wasn’t desirable at all. So it is very important to age your egg whites!
Chocolate Buttercream Filling
125 grams butter, at room temperature
1 cup icing sugar
35 grams dark chocolate
1. Whip butter in a small mixing bowl until it is creamy.
2. Melt chocolate over a double boiler and let it cool for 2 minutes before adding to the butter mixture. Add the icing sugar gradually, whipping as you go.
3. Pipe mixture into a piping bag and let it set in the fridge for 10-15 mixture until it is solid enough to pipe onto macaron shells.
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