French Macarons with White Chocolate Ganache Filling!

I am absolutely in love with macarons, not those coconut ones.. but colorful French ones. Everywhere I go, I try to find a french bakery just to buy macarons. The best one I've had so far was at Bouchon's Bakery in Yountville. I had that over the weekend, and man was that delicious. What was not so hot, the price. I always try to find ways to cut back on costs, especially if I can make it myself, but the problem is, macarons aren't just like any other dessert, they probably are one of THE most difficult dessert to make. It may look like just 2 cookies sandwiching some cream, but what it is .. is a dry and hard shell on the outside with a soft chewy center. It is kind of like a meringue..... it has to puff up nice and round, and have that "foot" or crust on the bottom.. That is why so many bakeries charge like 2-3 bucks for a tiny cookie.

What started this whole macaron phase? Well.. let's rewind back to Europe.... although this really really famous bakery is based from Paris, we saw the shop in London...I mean if a shop is covered in gold foil.. it must be good right?.. apparently it is legendary... but it wasn't open yet when we were there. :(

-Laduree - Burlington Arcade, London (they also had one in Harrod.. but I guess we got too carried away at the tea/coffee place to figure out what macarons were,) this little alley was full of $$ things for old people, and even had its own guard! Too bad we only had around 5 minutes to browse here. And.. when the tour people mentioned macarons.. the coconut macaroons popped into my head... and I'm not really a fan of those. Sigh... next time.. hopefully in Paris.. I will go there and PIG OUT...

- La Panier, Seattle ... so I bought these macarons because I knew how much my sis and I hit ourselves over the heads so many times for not going back to Laduree when we were in London... these were $2.25 a pop, yes, ridiculous but in a sense.. worth every penny! These were yummy, but oh, SO small...

- Um I think you can figure out the name of this bakery hahaha, the BEST macarons I've had! .. ( Had another one at Ala Moana in Oahu, but that was bad.. everything else was delish tho!) It's in the box in the back. I didn't have a good pic because we ate on the patio in the dark... Bouchon is supposed to be a really good restaurant! 1 Michelin star, but I'm weary of those 1 stars... The wine country is littered with so many 1 star restaurants. These macarons were $3 a pop, but they were a lot bigger... and so so so so so so so so so goodddd !!!

- My macarons : ) hehehe

So what did I do..... I searched the internet for many hours to try to find the perfect.. almost "no fail" recipe. That didn't happen, every recipe seemed to fail! I was already failing a lot in the kitchen, and was feeling down about my cooking abilities, so I thought, if I couldn't make these, then whatever, no one can, and I'll gladly pay whatever people charge for them. So here it is... it's not perfect, it was a tad burnt because the sugar started to caramelize on the silpat.. wth rite? I was off on the timing, so I need to work on that. But overall, it still looks like a macaron, pretty, glossy shell, with the FOOT. It didn't collapse when I brought it out... I looked at other sites and apparently the perfect macaroon has a foot that doesn't extend ( whoops)... glossy shell with no dollop ( whoops.. i didn't want to slam the pan down too hard because my parents were sleeping) ... and the filling is supposed to go to the edge of the cookie ( whoops... haha) but whatever! I'm really really happy with the results.. maybe this was beginner's luck ! : )


Chocolate Macarons
Adapted from David Lebovitz's Amazing Recipe
Makes 15-16 cookies, so 8 sandwiches

1/4 cup almond meal ( I got it at Tj's)
50 grams powdered sugar
1.5 tbsp dutch processed cocoa

1 egg white, room temperature
2 tbsp sugar

Misc. equipment :
Food processor or coffee grinder (<-I used that)
Pastry bag fitted with a big round tip ( Wilton 12.. that's all I had)
Silpat .. one for a big cookie sheet.. I think it's the half sheet size.

1. Use a food processor or coffee grinder and pulse the almond meal to a finer texture ( more flour like) Remove, and combine with powdered sugar, and cocoa. Return dry ingredients to processor or coffee grinder ( I had SO MANY BATCHES) and pulse until it is combined and has a really soft texture.
2. Whip up the egg white until it reaches the maximum fluffiness. It should be stiff, and hold its shape. Add in the 2.5 tbsp sugar. then whip until firm usually around 1 minute at high speeds.
3. Fold in the dry mix to wet, gently, until almost combined. (It will mix slightly in your bag) Fill pastry bag, and pipe 1.5 inch circles onto silpat, you should just hold your bag 90 degrees with the counter and squeeze gently, it should automatically form a circle, squeeze harder for bigger cookies
4. NOW preheat your oven to 330 degrees ( It was 375, but I had carmelized sugar bottoms.. even with silpat AND a REALLY heavy cookie sheet.. so heavy I can't hold it by one handle)
5. Bake the cookies for 12-13 minutes, depending on your size, the smaller ones are done at around 11 minutes. I think mine were slightly overcooked, I had no idea how to check, and I was nervous if they'd fall when I open the oven door too quickly...Let them cool on the pan and rack before removing..

EDIT: I remade these again with slight alterations.. and found that it's best to lower your temperature, and also, the macarons are done when the top is hard, and there's a slight wiggle when u touch them. Mine were slightly underbaked this time, and I baked it at 325 for 9 minutes, the shell did dry out giving that elusive crispy shell/ soft chewy center, but it did deflate a bit after cooking (I used normal cocoa because I'm cheap, and didn't want to waste the good stuff... there were ugly streaks in the batter because the cocoa is not as fine.)
I'm moving onto another dessert, I think I almost got the hang of it. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.. the internet made me scared! This new batch was melt in your mouth yum, the photographed batch, which I think was very pretty, was rock hard the next day , oh well, I got my nice pic, so I'm happy, now I have these decent looking ones (with feet!) without filling for now. I want to see how they hold up tomorrow morning. I wish they weren't so sweet.

White Chocolate Ganache
1/2 cup white chocolate
1.5 tbsp heavy whipping cream

1. Combine in a bowl and microwave for 1 minute
2. Stir and place a plastic cover on it.
3. Remove plastic after 5 minutes and stir until smooth, you can place it into the microwave more if you want at 30 sec. intervals.

( I should have searched for my corn syrup, but got too excited... that would have given it some glisten and shine... as well as butter..) This ganache was divine, it tasted like condensed milk... drool.

That's it for now... tomorrow is my bake day... I need to bake a cake for class... I think I will take it easy and bake a boxed mix. : )

Click here for my recipe of Pistachio Macarons with Pistachio Buttercream!