Macaron au Chocolat*

I have finally figured out what went wrong from the previous 2 times I tried my hands on these. This time, the batter was watery but it still came out ok-ish. So darn proud. And all the work was done by yours truly (I spent at least 30 minutes trying to sift the ground almonds because they weren't fine enough ugh)

My batter made about 30+ shells and I only used half the ingredients stated in the original recipe, and thank God, because my family does not appreciate such sweet desserts. About 5 of the shells were undercooked so it came out crumbly but the rest were actually fine. Didn't make any jam/buttercream/ganache because I was worried it'd fail and I'll just waste my time so I used Nutella instead! The result is just that its overwhelmingly sweet but all's good still. 

The recipe I followed was adapted from here, and she has a really good video on Macaron FAQ + troubleshooting so you should watch it if you're going to try it out! I think her recipe will yield at least 60 shells - so that's about 30 complete macarons and that is a lot unless you're intending to give out to your friends. 

Recipe (adapted from HowToCookThat)

This yields about 10-20 macarons (depending on the size you piped out)

Ingredients:

2 large (or 3 small) egg whites

35g caster sugar

100g icing sugar

58g almond meal (ground almonds)

15g cocoa powder

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 150ºc.

Sift the almond meal, icing sugar and cocoa powder to remove lumps.

Using a standing mixer/electric whisk, whisk the caster sugar and egg whites until stiff and glossy - if you turn the bowl upside down, it won't fall off.

Sift the icing sugar mixture into the egg whites mixture, and start folding.

Be careful not to undermix or overmix - the end mixture should be smooth and not runny, when you pull up your spatula it should make 'ribbons'.

Pipe your ready mixture onto trays lined with non-stick baking paper, then firmly bang your trays on the table to prevent cracking at the top (although some of mine did crack oops).

Bake in the oven for 20-22 minutes, the bottom of your macaron should be firm to the touch and doesn't sink in. 

Now I'll just go to the fridge and sneak a few more while I attempt to nurse my impending sore throat. This is the time where one can use the term - #YOLO

P/S: I've been playing around w photoshop for my photos on the blog and I like how they turn out - whadya think? Trying to get the hang of food photography!

*Directly translated into French via Google so if its wrong its not really my fault