S’mores Macarons

YES THESE ARE REAL… these little macarons are one of my favourite bakes to date!! They are everything I have dreamed about – a perfect chocolate macaron shell, filled with a deep layer of soft marshmallow – complete with a sprinkling of salty ritz crackers and oozing dairy milk chocolate ❤

These macarons are quite time consuming, and do take a lot of practise if you haven’t quite got the hang of making macarons.. but believe me they are extremely impressive and tasty!

I found the most amazing macaron recipe on Indulge with Mimi’s website, I then used a batch of my marshmallow recipe (which you can find under the ‘sweets’ heading on my homepage) for the middle! Her website describes the art and dates of macaron making so perfectly, so if you are at all stuck or confused through the bake, then head over to her website and have a look 🙂

I really hope you give these macarons a go because they are so scrumptious!!

Happy Baking! Sofia ❤

Ingredients:

• 1 portion of my vanilla marshmallow recipe (keep the marshmallow slab whole!)
• 65g ground almonds
• 65g icing sugar
• 1 tbsp. cocoa powder
• 45g caster sugar
• 50g egg whites (preferably aged – separated and left in a clean bowl in the fridge over night 🙂 )
• 1/8 tsp. cream of tartar
• 100g dairy milk chocolate
• 100g ritz crackers

Method:

Start by sorting out your work area – place a silicon mat/ baking parchment onto a baking tray, and fit a piping bag with a round nozzle. Set your oven to 160°C.

Place your egg whites into a clean, free-standing mixer with a whisk attachment. Whisk on high speed until soft peaks are formed, then slowly add in the caster sugar and cream of tartar until you achieve ‘firm’ peaks – this means your meringue mixture should retain its shape when tipped up side down, it should be nice and glossy too! I added a little bit of chestnut gel colouring to my egg white to enhance the chocolate colour 🙂 p.s if you don’t have cream of tartar, a pinch of salt will work too!

In a food processor, blitz together your cocoa, ground almonds and icing sugar until you achieve a fine powder/flour. Sift 1/3rd of your flour mix into the egg whites and fold until nicely incorporated.

Next, sift in the rest of your dry mix into the meringue, and FOLD gently with a spatula – making sweeping movements under and over the top of the mixture. This stage is called the macaronage, and is so critical in determining the outcome of your macarons! Mimi explains everything so well and gives great tutorial videos if you are worried at all!

The macaron mix should stop being folded when it gives a ‘lava’ like consistency, and makes thick ribbons in the macaron mix if you let it flow from your spatula. The macaron mix must be homogenous, but not too runny!

Pipe the macaron mix onto your prepared baking tin, making small identical circles, roughly 3.5 cm in size. Tap your tray onto your work surface several times to get any air bubbles in the shells to rise to the top – then using a toothpick, gently pop the shell where an air bubble under the surface of the shell is visible.

Leave the macaron shells to firm and dry for roughly 30mins, until the shells look dull!

Place in the oven for 12-14 mins, until the macarons have formed little ‘feet’, (see picture below) and the tops have gone crisp.

Gently remove from your baking mat. Cut out marshmallow discs in the same diameter as your macaron shells, using a cookie cutter. In a microwave, melt your milk chocolate until smooth (in 20s bursts). Also, crush up your rite crackers into tiny pieces, so it looks like crumbs!

To assemble your macarons, spread milk chocolate on both shells of the macaron. Sprinkle your cracker crumbs onto one shell, and place your marshmallow on the top of the other shell. Sandwich the shells together so you now have a complete macaron sandwich.

Finally, using a blow torch, lightly toast the edges of your marshmallow to give the macarons a perfect s’more finish!

YAY!! Now eat your macarons 🙂 ❤

Lots of Love, Sofia ❤ xxxxxxx