Chocolate Macarons

This was my second foray into the world of macarons. The first time I made them, I used a buttercream filling which, while tasty, was a bit too sweet for my liking. Determined to not make the same mistake, I wanted to try a recipe that had a ganache filling. Chocolate it was! I had tasted Say See Bon's dark chocolate macaron at the Style Spy party at Fine Finds, and they were delicious. Not sweet at all.

I decided on this recipe, since I was more comfortable with my macaron making abilities. I used almond flour this time (available at Gourmet Warehouse) instead of making it myself (so much easier and WAY less time consuming - obviously).

Seeing the 'feet' on your macarons is the most exciting part

The finished product

This time around, my cookies were a lot less chunky, since I used almond flour. However, the batter was quite thick and didn't have the "magma" consistency that I had learned about from the previous recipe. It made piping the cookies a bit harder since they were a bit more sturdy.

I found that the recipe would have been a bit more advanced if this was my first crack at macarons. Compared to the first recipe that I used, this one had very little tips and tricks. In fact, there were some glaring differences between the two recipes, like letting the cookies to sit, piped, before putting them into the oven to create a skin.

My ganache was a bit runny when I made it. Maybe I didn't let it cool enough (even though I had put it in the fridge), but once I had assembled the macarons, the ganache was still running out of them, so I had to put them in the fridge to avoid a huge mess. From the fridge, the macarons weren't very good, but left to reach room temperature, they were yummy.

I doubled the recipe and it still only yielded 12 macarons - a lot of work for very little reward.

I'm looking forward to my next go at it.