Christmas Macarons

Directions

FILLING

1. Place chocolate chips in medium size bowl. Bring cream to the boil and pour over the chocolate. Cover with with a plate and let sit for one minute. Using a whisk, stir the mixture together until homogenous and smooth. If chcolate not melting pop into the microware for 15 second bursts.

   Spoon out 1 tablespoon of ganache and keep this aside as you you will use it to adhere the holly and berry onto the shells at the end.
   
   Add the cinnamon to the remaining gancahe according to taste. Cool in the freezer for 30 mins. Meanwhile get on with the rest of the recipe.

   *After the 30 minutes are up, remove and whisk. The ganache will thicken and become buttercream coinsistency when cooled enough. If still too runny it may need a touch more cooling time. Once the right consistency is achived leave in a cool place.

   

SHELLS

1. Meanwhile, using a wooden spoon as a wedge if needed, open your oven door by 1-2cm and heat the oven to 150°C/gas mark 2/ 300°F. Alternatively, if your oven is a well-ventilated fan oven you can have the door closed and lower the temperature to 120°C/gas mark ½/250°F

2. Lay the a macaron baking mat onto a large baking tray. Place the piping bag pointy end down, into a tall glass. Slightly tilt upwards so that the mixture doesn’t fall through.Carefully separate out 60ml (approx. 2 large eggs) of egg whites into a clean mixing bowl or a freestanding mixer.
   
   * If you want to make this recipe plant based you can use aquafaba and a pinch of cream of tartar.

3. Into the mixing bowl add the 40g caster sugar to the egg whites (or aquafaba). Using an electric whisk, whisk the ingredients together on a high speed for 5 minutes. Once complete, turn your whisk to face upwards and check that the ‘peaks’ in the mixture are very stiff (they should remain upright unaided). You now have a meringue mixture.
   
   Note: if you do not have an electric whisk you can do this by hand, but you will need to really whisk vigorously and potentially have to whisk for at least 10-15 mins until you have stiff peaks as described above.Empty the macaron mix into a bowl. Sieve the powders (Cocoa, almond and icing sugar). The almond will not go through a fine sieve but that is ok, you just want to get rid of any obvious large bits (over 3mm diameter).

4. Once the macaron mix is lump free, empty the dry contents into the meringue. Now comes the crucial part of mixing the batter. Do this by scooping the mixture up with your spatula and pressing it back down into the centre of the bowl. Repeat this action 30 times, rotating the bowl as you go. With the spatula raised, you should now see a treacle like ribbon of batter that takes about 20 seconds to fall back into the batter. If it is thicker than this, fold again and re-check until the consistency is perfect. It should be smooth and shiny with no grainy bits when you stop folding and it settles. When you have the right consistency, pour the mixture into the piping bag, keeping it in the glass. Pick up the bag with one hand on the nozzle end, and the other hand sealing the open end in a twist.

5. Pipe batter onto each of the cavities on the macaron baking mat. or 4 printed templates under parchment paper.

   Pipe generous rounds (circular disks of mixture) 1mm outside of the inner circles of the macaron baking mat.Pipe using a slight swirling motion from the centre of the round to disperse the batter, or pipe using a 45-degree angle. Each circle should be 4cm diameter.

   Experiment and see what works better for you. Take your time. The key is to get control of the flow of mixture. Tilt the bag upward if you feel it starts oozing out too much.Remove any air bubbles by tapping the baking mat firmly against your kitchen counter several times, rotating the sheet as you go. When complete, the macarons will form perfect circular rounds in the grooves of the mat. If they do not you may need to tease them a little with a teaspoon.Let the macarons rest on your kitchen counter until the tops form a skin. They are ready to bake when you touch the tops of the rounds, and the mixture doesn’t stick to your finger. Depending on humidity, this will take around 15-30 minutes. You want to make sure they are dry.Put your macarons into the preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes. Check if the macarons come away from the mat easily. If not, return them to the oven for 5-10 minutes at a time and keep rechecking.

6. The easiest way to take them off the mat is to flip the mat onto a tea towel (so shells are upside down) and peel the mat away.

7. Cool the macarons upside down for 5 minutes or until completely hardened.Turn half of the shells the right way up. Use the saved white ganache to adhere the holly and berry sprinkles on so they look like little mini Christmas puddings.

ASSEMBLY

1. Prepare piping bag as before and spoon in the cinnamon ganache into the bag.

2. Pipe a 10p sized blob of filling onto the upturned halves. Try to pair up shells according to size and form sandwiches. Twist rather than pushing them together otherwise they may break.

3. Your beautiful macarons are finished! You can enjoy them straight away, but they are even better 24 hours later. Store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator and bring them to room temperature before you serve them.

4. This process is called “ageing” and softens the inside of the shells, whilst keeping the outer shells crisp. Yummy!

STORAGE AND BATCHING ADVICE

1. Your macarons can be enjoyed for up to 3 days (if kept refrigerated). You can also freeze them and bring them out when you have guests that you would like to impress. Make sure you defrost them for at least 1 hour at room temperature before eating.