One of my favourite berries are Raspberries. I love them so much! And theyre even better with dark chocolate! And you know whats EVEN BETTER than that!? A macaron with dark chocolate ganache and raspberry buttercream!..Oh Yeah…. froget chocolate coverd strawberries.. this is pure lush!

Here’s how you make them!

INGREDIENTS:

On a note – I will be making an Italian Merengue for the Macaron as I have felt through all my many tries that this is the best merengue that works for making it at home.

The Macaron Shell –

• 150g Almond Flour
• 150g Icing Sugar
• 2x55g Egg White (can be the egg white of 2 or 3 eggs depending on how small or large they are)
• 50g Water
• 150g Granulated Sugar
• A couple drops of red or pink food colouring

The Raspberry Buttercream –

• 200 grams Margarine or Butter – at room temperature
• 3 dl Icing Sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 dl Mixed Raspberries – can use frozen as well, just make sure to strain of excess water

The Chocolate Ganache –

• 150 g Dark Chocolate – cut inte small cubes
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 tsp sea salt

Method –

The Macaron Shell –

1. Sieve the almond flour and icing sugar twice until only the fine flour remains without any lumps. Mix together in a bowl.
2. Add 55g of egg white to the flour mix. Mix until the dry ingredients become a paste like texture.
3. On medium to low heat boil the granulated sugar with water together. Do not stir, just let it bubble until it reaches 118 °C .
4. In a separate bowl whip the remaining 55g egg white until frothy and once the water/sugar mixture reaches the correct temperature pour into the frothy egg white slowly and from an edge of the bowl. This is to make sure that the water/sugar does not splash around or outside of the bowl. Mix while pouring at a high speed. Once the mixture starts becoming a thick merengue add the drops of red or pink food coloring. And mix at low speed until the color is evenly distributed.
5. Pour in all the merengue mixture into the almond paste and mix with a spatula. This is a vital point in the baking – as you Must mix around the bowl and then cut through the dough making sure that there is air coming into the merengue and almond paste mixture. Don’t be too rough with the mixing. And mix only until the mixture falls off the spatula in a ribbon like manor.
6. At this point heat up your oven to 100 °C .
7. Pour the mixture into a piping bag and using a round plain nib make small disks about a 1/2 inch diameter on your baking sheet. You can always buy silicon sheets which are reusable and have the circle marking for you to pipe onto for ease. The silicone mats work just as well as regular baking paper. You should end up with around 30 macaron disks on one baking tray and this batch should make two trays.
8. Once all your Macarons are piped, tap your pan twice to release any air bubbles you may see. Sometimes it takes more taps – just make sure no bubbles appear and the disks look smooth. Leave for 20 min outside to rest. This period of resting helps the macaron create its ‘shell’ so once it starts baking that’s when the shell rises and you see the ‘foot’ which is a skirt like formation being created on the bottom of the macaron.
9. Once the 20 min are done turn your heat up to 150 °C and pop in one tray. (From my experience one tray at a time works best) leave to bake for 8 min, then open the oven for 10 sec exactly, close and bake for another 8 min.
10. Take out your Macaron shells and let cool on a cooling wrack. And now they are ready to be filled! YAY!

The Raspberry Buttercream –

1. Add icing sugar and margarin together in a bowl until blended completely.
2. Add in the rest of the ingredients and whisk with an electric whisk and high speed until blended completely.
3. Pour the buttercream into a piping bag and let chill for 10-15 minutes in the fridge until a little more stiff.
4. Take out of the fridge and pipe onto your desired cookie, macaron, cake, and whatever else you love to eat ! 🙂

The Chocolate Ganache –

1. First take your chopped dark chocolate and place into a medium sized bowl and sprinkle on the sea salt.
2. In a saucepan on medium to low heat, boil up the heavy cream until it starts bubbling and immedietly take it off the heat and pour onto the chocolate. DO NOT MIX! Let it sit for 10 min and then mix. you can use a wooden spoon or a mixer. This all depends on how thick you want your ganache to be. If you want it more like a thick chocolatey ganache, then just mix it until well combined and thick in consitency. If you want it more like cream, then mix and let is chill in the fridge for about 30 min, or until completely cooled through then mix with a hand held mixer until it becomes a thick creamy consistency.

Piping your Macaron –

1. Grab your shells and fill the center of the shell with your chocolate ganache , this should literaly be one small dollop.
2. Then pipe around the ganache wio th the raspberyy buttercream.
3. Close the top with anotehr amazron shell.
4. I decorated my macaron by melting some chocolate and taking a brush and just brushing with on swip on just half of the macaron shell so that the chocolate looks liek a paint brush effect.

And there you have it! All done and ready to eat!

ENJOY!