Chocolate macarons with dark chocolate ganache

Some of the posts published in this blog so far make pretty clear that I am completely fanatic for egg based desserts, whether egg whites or yolks based. As every egg fanatic must be, I have eaten raw eggs my entire life and never wasted a minute worrying about it. My mom is to be blamed on this raw egg matter as she was the one who added raw eggs to our morning smoothies. My mother used to prepare smoothies daily, usually a blend of milk, papaya, banana and egg or milk, avocado, banana, honey and egg. We (my brothers and I) grew up drinking those whole egg added smoothies every single morning during our childhood.



In those years it was common among mothers the belief that thin kids (and we were all very thin) were not particularly healthy or strong enough and according to this belief we needed some extra protein. Besides the daily dose of raw egg yolks and milk, I've been fed with loads of egg based desserts, specially meringues and yolk based creams such as baba de moça and quindim and ovos moles. I was always crazy for toucinho do céu an amazing mixture of dense yolk cream and almonds and amaretti an almond and meringue based cookie. The love for macarons was a natural part of this process...



Chocolate macarons with dark chocolate ganache filling

110 grams of egg whites ( three large egg whites)
110 grams grounded almonds (almond flour)
200 grams confectioners sugar
50 grams sugar
3 tablespoons unsweetened natural cocoa powder

How:

Couple of days before the day you plan to make your macarons separate the egg whites and leave them covered on the counter top at room temperature for two or even three days.

On the day you plan to make the macarons process the nuts and confectioners sugar in a food processor until well grounded, sift the mixture once, sift it again to remove all the big pieces of nuts and then weight the mixture. Line two or three large cookie pans with parchment paper and set aside.

Beat the egg whites until foamy. Slowly start to add the 50g of sugar, one table spoon at a time and continue whisking until you have a glossy meringue.





Add the flour mixture to the meringue in three or four parts folding until the dry ingredients were completely incorporated to the meringue and you can't see any white parts in the batter. Make a test to check the batter and put a teaspoon of batter on a plate to make sure the batter flattens, if it does you are ready but if it keep the form of a peak you still have to fold the batter couple of times more.

Once you feel the batter is ready transfer it to a pastry bag, or a plastic bag, and pipe the batter to a diameter of three centimeters on the prepared pans. Let the piped macarons stand in room temperature for 15 to 30 minutes, while your oven is heating. You can sprinkle some nuts over the shells, before they dry completely. I sprinkled some of the bigger pieces of nuts which didn't pass through the sieve. You can also sprinkle some sugar or any other grounded spice or nut.

Bake the shells for 10 minutes at 150 C/275F in a preheated oven. It is important to turn the pans halfway through for a more equal baking. You might need a few more minutes if your oven is not properly regulated.

Makes 60-70 shells (30-35 filled macarons)



Chocolate ganache filling

100 grams de dark chocolate (one with at least 50% of cocoa solids)
60 ml of heavy cream

How:

Chop the chocolate into small pieces and set aside. Meanwhile boil the heavy cream and pour it over the chopped chocolate. Stir well until you get a homogeneous ganache. Let the ganache stand for to cool Stir to create and emulsion. Let it harden a bit until it is pipeable and fill the macarons.