I had grand illusions of another macaron tower recently with five brightly coloured, different flavour macarons to go with a sprinkle cake I was making. One would be the old favourite of Cherry Ripe Macarons, and the other four brand new ones I have had on my wish list to make.
Well for three of them I made the buttercream, but that was as far as I got, but one did end up with its shells and I am glad they did because I was very happy with how these Jaffa Macarons turned out.
Everyone knows that orange and chocolate is a brilliant combination and one of my favourite childhood treats were these orange chocolate chip muffins mum used to make when we were kids (and I often make now). My brother especially loves this combo so the hubby and I gave him a big glass jar with a couple of kilos of Jaffas for Christmas a few years ago. Actually, maybe I should change that to “loved it” because after eating all of those Jaffas I don’t think he had any for months/years after that.
To get started, I made the ganache. This was not only so it had time to set, but so the flavour could intensify as time went on. The recipe is your basic ganache of chocolate (I used dark) and cream, with the addition of orange oil/extract and orange zest.
Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl and then heat the cream on the stove top or in the microwave. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and let it sit for a minute to start to melt, then stir until nice and smooth.
Add the orange oil/extract and orange zest to the ganache and stir thoroughly before setting it aside to cool.
Now onto the macaron shells. To colour the shells, I added a combination of yellow and red powdered food colouring to the sugar syrup. I used predominately yellow, which I had purchased from Savour School, with a tiny amount of red food colouring (because the red food colouring I have from The Red Spoon Company is quite strong as you will remember from the Cherry Ripe Macaron post).
You could certainly buy orange powdered food colouring, or adjust the yellow and red ratios to get an orange colour that you like.
Once the macaron shell mixture was made, the colour obviously changed after being mixed with the other ingredients, however I knew it would bake a little darker so I was not overly concerned with the slightly peach looking colour that I had.
Pipe the shells onto your baking trays using the 4cm or 5cm template found in my library and allow to rest in order to form a skin.
Once the shells are baked and cooled, pair them up and fill with the ganache. The macarons are best if they are kept in the fridge overnight rather than eating straight away so try to resist the urge. If you end up with some leftover ganache there certainly isn’t any reason you should let that go to waste if you need to get your fix.
These little beauties did end up on my now two-tone macaron tower and even though it was missing three other colours, I was pretty happy with the look nonetheless.
| Servings |
|
- 225 g almond meal
- 225 g icing sugar
- 82.5 g egg white(s) fresh
- 225 g caster sugar
- 55.5 g water
- yellow powdered food colouring
- red powdered food colouring
- 82.5 g egg white(s) old
- 2 g powdered egg white
- 350 g dark chocolate
- 125 g cream
- 1 orange zest of
- 1/2 tsp orange oil/extract adjust to taste
Ingredients
For the macarons
For the ganache
|
|
- Place the almond meal and icing sugar into a food processor and blend for a few minutes, slightly tilting the processor to ensure everything is evenly mixed. Sift the mixture into a large bowl and mix in the fresh egg whites to form a paste.
- Place the caster sugar, water and food colouring into a saucepan and place over a low heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves and then increase the heat to medium to bring the mixture to 119°C. Remove from the heat, and the temperature of the syrup will continue to rise slightly and will need to be added to the whisked egg whites at 121°C.
- Place the old egg whites and the powdered egg white into the bowl of an electric mixer and whisk until combined. Once they start to froth, slowly pour the syrup (which should be at 121°C) into the bowl whilst whisking on a medium speed until the mixture is fluffy and glossy. Continue to whisk until completely cool.
- Fold one third of the whisked egg whites into the almond paste. Continue to gently fold in the remainder of the egg whites until thoroughly combined.
- Transfer the mixture to a large piping bag and onto a lined baking tray pipe 4cm circles approximately 2 cm apart.
- Set the trays aside for 30-60 minutes until a skin forms on the macaron.
- Preheat the oven to 150°C and place the trays into the oven and bake for 16-20 minutes until the top of the macaron is cooked and you are able to lift the shell from the tray without it sticking. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely on the tray.
- Chop the chocolate into small pieces and place in a heat proof bowl.
- Bring the cream to a boil over a medium heat then pour over the chocolate, letting it stand for 1 minute.
- Once the chocolate has melted slightly, stir until smooth. If the cream has cooled too much, place in the microwave for 15-30 seconds to continue to melt the chocolate.
- Add the orange zest and orange oil/extract and stir thoroughly to combine.
- Set aside to cool to room temperature. When ready to fill macarons, transfer to a piping bag.
- Pair similar sized macarons together and place one face up.
- Pipe filling onto the macaron facing up leaving about 3-5mm around the edge.
- Place the other macaron on top and gently squeeze together, pushing the filling to the edge.
- Put the completed macarons in an air tight container in the fridge at least overnight. To serve, bring to room temperature.
In place of yellow and red powdered food colouring, you can use orange powdered food colouring if available. All powdered food colourings are not created equal so you may need more or less depending on the brand.
You can grab a template to help you pipe the shells from my template library.
Feel free to share a few words before you go