Chocolate Macarons with Earl Grey Orange Ganache
Author: 
Serves: 24-28 macarons
 
Ingredients
  • For the Cookies:
  • 2 Cups or 250 grams powdered sugar
  • 1/14 or 135 grams cups slivered almonds
  • 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 4 egg whites or 120 grams room temperature egg whites (if your eggs are cold, set in bowl of warm water while you retrieve the rest of the ingredients) (if environment or almonds are moist, please use 3.5 egg whites or 105 grams egg whites) and loosely whisked to loosen up
  • ¼ cup super fine white sugar
  • For the Ganache:
  • 3.5 ounces bittersweet chocolate finely chopped
  • 2 tablespoons cold butter cut into small cubes
  • ½ cup heavy cream
  • 1½ teaspoons loose Earl Grey Tea
  • 1 table spoon finely grated orange zest
  • ¼ teaspoon allspice
  • ⅛ teaspoon salt
Instructions
  1. FOR THE COOKIE:
  2. Arrange oven racks so theres one on the upper third and one on the lower third. Preheat oven to 300F.
  3. Take parchment paper and cut out to fit your baking trays.
  4. With pencil, draw out small 1 inch circles ( I used my Nespresso pod to draw circles ) spacing them about an inch apart. Than place with pencil side down on 2 baking trays and set aside
  5. In a food processor combine 1 cup icing sugar and all the almonds, pulse for about 90 seconds,
  6. Then add the other cup of powdered sugar and 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder and pulse again for another 30-45 seconds. BE CAREFUL not to make a paste. Needs to be dry.
  7. Sift flour through medium mesh strainer and discard the large pieces. If it exceeds a tablespoon, than run it through the food processor again and sift etc.
  8. In a clean dry bowl, or stand mixer, beat the egg whites with whisk attachment on medium speed until white and foamy...
  9. Add the super fine sugar and continue beating on medium and gradually work up to medium high until you have firm peaks
  10. Fold in the egg white meringue into the almond mixture in two parts.
  11. When folding, try not to exceed 20-25 folds each time
  12. Fill a pastry bag with a ¼ inch tip or just snip a corner of a ziplock bag and fill with batter.
  13. Pipe a little on the corners of the parchment paper underneath so that the sheets are secured and don't move around
  14. Carefully pipe the batter onto the baking sheets so they fill the circles.
  15. Bang the trays about 6 times each so the air bubbles get released
  16. Let the macarons now rest at room temperature for about 15 minutes or until a dry skin is formed over the cookies
  17. Bake for 16 minutes rotating once about halfway through. Make sure the "feet" which are the bubbles have formed before rotating
  18. Transfer to wire rack to finish cooling
  19. FOR THE GANACHE:
  20. On medium heat, bring the cream and the Earl Grey tea to a soft simmer
  21. once bubbles start forming, set aside for at least 10 minutes
  22. In a double boiler (sauce pan with water and a heat proof bowl on top of pot not touching water) place the chocolate butter, orange zest, allspice and salt in and stir until melted in your heatproof bowl. Once it's melted and well combined, set aside
  23. Drain the cream and tea through a fine mesh strainer over the hot chocolate. Discard the tea
  24. Stir until well combined.
  25. Cover with plastic and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes
  26. Once the ganache has cooled down and thickened, fill pastry bag with ¼ inch tip and pipe about a teaspoon on one flat side of the macaron cookie and close with a second macaron cookie
  27. Repeat with rest of cookies.
Recipe by STEMS & FORKS at https://www.stemsandforks.com/?p=1120