Vanilla French Macarons with Chocolate Filling

French Macarons are delicious, they are a meringue cookie made with egg whites, granulated sugar, powdered sugar and almond flour. Many times food coloring is added as well as different flavorings. I love these and as they are really expensive to have shipped and aren’t available where I live, I have to make my own.

Since I am still learning I just made plain vanilla ones. I did attempt to make a heart though. It didn’t raise like it should have, but it did stay in the shape I piped it. I am by no means an expert on these.

I found a tutorial on BraveTarts blog, Macarons, which is what I use every time I attempt to make these. She is amazing and has step by step tutorials and answers all kinds of questions about them. I highly recommend if you are going to attempt to make Macarons that you read her instructions first.

I desperately want to learn how to make all kinds of pastries. Taking a hands on course with an instructor would simply be amazing. Unfortunately that isn’t an option with where I am living at the moment, so I have to settle with internet tutorials and YouTube videos.

Anyway this is my third or fourth attempt at making French Macarons. This time around I did get a bit of the ruffled edge, but they still aren’t right. They did not raise as much as they should have and some of the shells were cracked. I have a feeling I undermixed the batter, but I didn’t want to overmix it like I did the first few times I made these. It is very tricky to get it just right. If you undermix you get cracks, overmix and you can’t pipe it and they don’t raise right.

To start, I prepared my pastry bag, which I used a gallon size ziploc bag fitted with wilton’s #12 round tip.

I also sifted together the powdered sugar and almond flour and set it aside.

Then you need to combine the egg whites, sugar and salt together in your mixing bowl, making sure there are no yolks in the whites and that your bowl is sparkling clean, with no oil in it. Then you mix it until a stiff meringue forms.

Now you are going to add the almond flour and powdered sugar to the meringue. Just dump it all in there.

This is the tricky part, and the part that I always somehow mess up. You need to mix it together until it forms a thick batter, but not too thick. It will be hard to mix at first and won’t appear to go together, but it will eventually. Just be very careful not to overmix it. It needs to be fluid enough that it doesn’t hold it’s shape after 20 seconds or so, but thick enough that it won’t run all over the place when you pipe it. Like I said earlier, before you make these, read BraveTarts tutorial.

I have a feeling mine is undermixed. The batter did not melt back into itself like it should have. You can see it in the cup above and on the baking sheets in the pictures below, which I took after I banged the sheets on the counter to get the air out. The shells should be smooth, without the point from piping it. Once you are done mixing, pour half of the batter into your bag and pipe it into circles or whatever shape you want onto either parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

To pipe these I held the bag straight up and down and counted to five as I squeezed to try to make them uniform. It worked for the most part. You want them to be as uniform as possible as later on you are going to match them up into pairs and sandwich them together. I baked them for about 20 minutes at 300 degrees.

You can see a little bit of the ruffled edge on these. This was my first batch. I under-baked them a bit though (oops!) and they turned out chewy, and the bottoms had a tendency to come off on the sheet pan, but I was able to get them off once they were cool. You also have to be careful when baking these, parchment paper seems to work better as to test when they are done, they should peel easily from the sheet. The silicone mats are trickier because the cookies will slide around a bit on them, but they won’t be done. The other batches I baked longer and they turned out to be crispier and the bottoms stayed put. The best part of these is that even if they don’t turn out like they should they will still taste fantastic.

Once they are baked and cooled, you can add a filling of your choice. You can use pretty much anything you want. Buttercream, jam, frosting, etc. I decided to make Hershey’s Perfectly Chocolate, Chocolate Frosting, to keep things simple. I rolled some of them in sprinkles just for fun and to add a bit of color.

I used a piping bag fitted with the wilton #12 tip to pipe the chocolate frosting onto the flat side of one shell and then fitted the other shell on top, then I rolled some of them in the sprinkles.

For the Recipe for the Macarons, go here:  http://bravetart.com/recipes/Macarons.

To make the filling:

Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients:

• 1 stick butter
• 2/3 cup cocoa
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 cups powdered sugar

Melt the butter in a microwave safe bowl, add the cocoa, whisking until combined. Add the vanilla and 1 cup of powdered sugar, mixing until combined. Add in another cup of powdered sugar and half of the milk. Mix until combined and smooth. Add the final cup of powdered sugar and whip until smooth. Makes about 2 cups of frosting.