Phenomenal Phoods

French Macarons with Chocolate Ganache Filling

Ingredients:

Instructions:

  1. French Macarons:
  2. Start out with your egg whites at room temperature either by setting them out a little ahead of time or putting them in a cup of warm water for 5 minutes or so.
  3. I tried beating the egg whites with both a hand mixer and a stand mixer and got far better results with the stand mixer. I think it was just a more even mix at a better pace, but both will work. Beat the egg whites until they are foamy and add the sugar and salt. Continue to beat for 5 minutes or so on medium speed until stiff peaks form. You want the peak to stand straight up when you lift the whisk out of the bowl. You can also check if it's ready if you can flip the bowl upside down and nothing falls out. Don't mix on the high speed or for too long because they egg whites will get liquid again if you go too far.
  4. Sift the icing sugar and the almond meal together into a medium bowl, discarding any large bits. Fold the sifted mixture into the egg whites. Most recipes I came across said to add the food colouring to the egg whites first, but I tried that a couple of times with poor results. I added the sugar and almond mixture to the egg whites and folded it a few times, then added the food colouring and continued to fold. I read a lot of stuff about doing 50 folds, but I stopped around 30 so I'm pretty sure that counting doesn't help at all. You want to mix it enough that the sugar and almond meal is completely incorporated and the batter is not lumpy, but you don't want it to be too runny. When you lift the spatula out of the bowl, it should fall slowly in a big gloppy mess (that's the technical term). I saw a couple of recipes that referred to it as the texture of molten lava, and that was not particularly helpful. How on earth would anyone know what molten lava looks or feels like?
  5. Spoon the mixture into an icing bag or a large ziploc fitted with a cake decorating tip. You want to use a tip that is just a large circle. Pipe the batter in 1 inch circles onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper (mine stuck a little to the paper so I wouldn't even try this without the paper). Give the tray a couple of bangs to release the air and get smooth, even circles. Let the tray sit out for about 30 minutes so that the cookies dry out a little. If you just put them in the oven immediately, they will run and turn into one giant cookie (trust me, I know).
  6. While they are sitting out, preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. When you are ready to bake the cookies, put them in for about 15 minutes, rotating the tray halfway through. Start checking them at 8 minutes if you have a finicky oven. You don't really want them to brown so if you see the bottoms start to turn light brown, remove them from the oven. For some reason, the little ridge that forms at the bottom of the cookies is referred to as the "feet", which makes zero sense to me, but your cookies should get feet like the ones in the photo below (my one process photo!).
  7. Chocolate Ganache:
  8. Heat the cream for about a minute and a half in the microwave and pour over the chocolate in a small bowl. Add the melted butter and stir until smooth. Store in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour until firm enough to pipe onto the cookies but not hardened.
  9. Add the chocolate to a pastry bag or ziploc and use the same tip that you used for the cookie batter to pipe small mounds onto the bottom of each cookie. Top with another cookie and you're finally finished!!