Chocolate Macarons with Raspberry Chipotle Filling

I love sweets and I have NEVER eaten a macaron. SURPRISED?! I am! I just pine over them on instagram and through out my Real Simple magazines. (They always have the cutest ones!) I pretty much live in the country and am not driving myself to town just to find a “cute” macaron to eat. So I decided last week to make them myself.

I pride myself on being a decent baker so I figured I could challenge myself with a task that is more tedious than I’m used to. This was a task. The end result was well worth it! I found this recipe on Pinterest and tweaked it a little to make it my own.

Ingredients:

Chocolate macaron

4 egg whites
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 cups plus 1/3 cup powdered sugar
2 cups plus 1/4 cup almond meal (I through my chopped almonds into a food processor to get my almond meal)
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon Hersey’s cocoa powder

Raspberry Chipotle filling (easiest part)

Robert’s Reserve Hot Pepper Raspberry Chipotle Sauce
You can make your own filling but I chose to do it the easy way. Fillings can be anything your heart desires – jams, jellies, sauce, chocolate, ganache, etc., etc.

To make macarons:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. (My oven is gas so 330 – 350 degrees in most macaron recipes is too hot.)

Start by whisking the sugar and egg whites in your Kitchenaid mixer bowl with whisk attachment. Beat on low speed (number 2 on Kitchenaid) until egg whites start to form foamy bubbles for about 2 minutes. Increase mixer speed to medium (number 4) and beat until meringue turns more white foamy for another two minutes. Increase mixer to high (number 6) and beat until meringue holds stiff peaks, about another 2-3 minutes.

If you are making your own almond meal, place chopped and peeled almonds in a food processor first and make sure you stir every so often to reduce chunks. Then add powdered sugar and cocoa powder into the food processor with the almond meal and sift out any chunks.

Add dry ingredients to meringue. Using a spatula fold and smash dry mixture into meringue against the bowl for about 20-25 times. Stick the spatula at the bottom and fold to the top. DO NOT WHISK!! Don’t worry about being gentle with the folding, just don’t whisk the batter. The batter should hold its shape and start to slowly flatten out. Transfer macaron batter to pastry bag or icing pumps and sit still for 20 minutes before piping. I used an icing pump for a more stable drop.

After 20 minutes start making Hershey kisses on a parchment lined baking sheet. You can be precise and draw out circles to follow on the parchment paper. I just made Hershey kisses in similar sizes. Be fore you plop them in the oven tap the pan on a solid surface to remove any bubbles. Bubbles will cause the shells to crack!

Bake for about 16-18 minutes. Remove from oven and transfer to a cooling rack. Leave shells to cool completely before you peel away. Shells will peel away from parchment when ready. Do not cook too long – I will attest to making a batch that failed. They will crack if you cook them longer than 20 minute. Beware – excessive heat is BAD!

Let them cool for 20 minutes and pipe filling on one shell. Place a second shell on top.

Place the macarons in an air tight container and chill for 24 hours. Or eat them now. Whatever suits your fancy!

Now, there is no need to fly to Paris… I just turned my house into my own French Pâtisserie!