Mad about the Macarons!

I’m mad about macarons! Ever since my first taste of Pierre Hermé macarons in Paris, I’ve been obsessed with these delicious sweet treats and how to make them.

I’ve been to Atelier des Chefs for a cooking class all about macarons, where we made the most perfect examples… when trying again at home they never turn out quite as perfect, but I love playing around with them, particularly with the fillings!

These bad boys have fillings involving gin of course!

This time round I made two different macarons – a favourite I’ve made before with chocolate shells and a raspberry sloe gin dark chocolate ganache; and a new one!

The pink shells are filled with a lemon curd cream, bolstered with 58 Gin!

I used recipes from Atelier des Chefs for my macaron shells – the chocolate following this one chocolate macaroons with honeyed ganache and the pink ones using macaroons with a lime and fresh ginger buttercream.

However if you want to try macarons for the first time I would recommend checking out Stella Park’s website BraveTart, where she addresses lots of the myths around macarons and also the practicality of getting the macronage right (that’s the technique of getting the shells made correctly).

If in doubt follow her recipes & instructions!!

What is key in making the shells is getting the texture of the batter right – the egg whites need to be combined to the right level with the dry ingredients (sugar and ground almonds), but not overmixed, complicated…

Gorgeous pink shells just out of the oven!

A close up of a pile of macarons

So when you have the shells you need to think about the fillings!!

Lemon curd with 58 Gin folded into whipped cream – yum!!

We made the lemon curd from scratch following this recipe from The Usual Saucepans – as it didn’t end up being that thick (probably due to the addition of the 50ml of gin!), we whipped up cream and folded the curd through to get a thicker filling, which would stay in place.

A flourish of lemon curd macarons!

For the chocolate ganache filling, I used the Atelier des Chef recipe, but replaced the cream with raspberry coulis (basically raspberries pureed through a fine sieve to get all the pesky pips out), and a slog of Caroline’s home made sloe gin (again about 2 shots or 50mls… ish, try it first and then add more if you want more!).

Both fillings should be cooled before being piped onto the shells, which are then gently pressed together. Macarons then need to be chilled at least overnight in the fridge for the shells and the fillings to ‘mindmeld’ – i.e. the flavours and textures to work together. I don’t know the science of what happens, but the combination of the shells and fillings works so much better in the macaron as a whole! (obviously you can still taste test straight away!)

Packed up ready to go into the office – you don’t want to bang them about and remember to keep them in the fridge when you have cream fillings, but you may want to get them out a little bit before you eat to let them get back up to room temperature.

Do you like macarons? What are your favourite flavours?!