Christmas macarons inspired by warm mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows🎄☃️🎁🍪🎅🏼.
| Basic Macaron Shell adapted from How To Cook That
165 g icing sugar Whipped Chocolate Ganache 140g heavy cream Royal Icing and Decorations 1/2 (15g) egg white |
To make Whipped Chocolate Ganache
Place chocolate chips in a heatproof bowl. Bring cream to a boil until almost simmering. Add the hot cream over the ganache and let sit, allowing the heat to naturally melt the chocolate. After 5 minutes or so, the chocolate should be melted. Whisk the ganache gently to combine until it comes together. Add the butter and stir to combine. Transfer the mixture into a container and chill in the fridge for at least an hour, or overnight, to set. Bring the ganache to room temperature. The consistency should be firm, but soft enough to mix. Using a stand mixer with a whisk attachment or a hand mixer, whip the ganache on medium-high speed until light in colour and fluffy in texture. This will take around 4 to 5 minutes. To make Macaron Shells Sift together the icing sugar and almond meal using a coarse sieve. Discard any gritty bits of almond flour that do not go through. In a separate bowl, beat together egg whites until soft peaks. Add the caster sugar and continue to beat on medium-high speed until stiff peaks. This means that they should be stiff enough to turn the bowl upside down without the mixture falling out. Add in the brown gel food colouring. Beat for an additional 1 minute at low speed. Add the almond flour and icing sugar mixture and fold in using a rubber spatula. Keep gently folding until the mixture looks like lava; it should have some movement but not be runny. While you are folding periodically scrape down the sides of the bowl with the spatula to make sure everything is mixed uniformly. Place in a piping bag fitted with a round tip (Wilton 1A) and pipe out macarons on a baking sheet. Tap the baking sheets on the bench to get air bubbles out of the shells. Leave the shells to sit for 30 minutes to 2 hours to allow a shell to form. The macarons are ready to be baked only when the shell has formed and dry to touch, otherwise they may crack during baking. [Tip: sometimes, the shell does not form well in humid weather. A trick is to bake macarons on the top rack of a 160 degree Celcius oven for 10-20 seconds, until a shell has formed. Remove from oven and bring back to to room temperature.] Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees Celcius. Bake macarons in the oven until feet are formed and the shells are crisp. This takes roughly 12-14 minutes. Try not to open the oven during the cooking process as this will cause a drop in oven temp and may make your macarons hollow. Cool and then gently peel off the baking paper (if you can’t do this easily the shells are not done yet). Pair similarly sized shells together. To make Royal Icing Place the egg whites in a bowl and beat on medium speed until frothy. Add the icing sugar and beat on low speed until combined. Increase the speed to medium-low and beat until the mixture is thick and shiny, 3 to 5 minutes. Adjust consistency using small amounts of water or milk, if needed. Divide icing and tint with food colouring. To assemble and decorate Pipe chocolate ganache and place small pieces of marshmallow in between similarly sized shells. Pipe on designs on each macaron using royal icing and decorate with sprinkles! Place macarons in the fridge for at least 24 hours overnight. This allows the flavours to blend and mature, and softens the macaron shell. Enjoy! |
My Dose of Sugar 