St Patrick’s Day Macarons
St Patrick’s Day Macarons with Guinness Ganache filling. Perfect to celebrate St Patrick’s Day!
Ingredients
French Method Shells
- 100 grams almond flour 3.5 oz
- 100 grams powdered sugar 3.5 oz
- 6 grams cornstarch 0.2 oz
- 77 grams egg whites 2.7 oz
- 70 grams granulated sugar 2.4 oz
- Gel food coloring
Guinness Ganache
- 200 grams chopped chocolate or chocolate chips
- 1/3 cup heavy cream 78 ml
- 1/4 cup Guinness beer 60 ml
Instructions
French Method Shells
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Pre-heat the oven to 300ºF.
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Before you start, get the ingredients and materials ready.
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Prepare a large piping bag fitted with a round tip.
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Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mat.
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I use a silicone mat that already comes with a template to pipe the macarons. You can make your own template or print from the internet, and place it under the parchment paper or blank silicone mat.
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Measure out all of the ingredients.
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Sift the almond flour, powdered sugar, and cornstarch together. Set aside.
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Place the egg whites in the bowl of an electric mixer.
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With the whisk attachment, begin to whip the egg whites on low speed for about 30 seconds, until they start to foam up.
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Raise the speed to medium and whip for another minute, until the egg whites begin to look white in color and start to increase in volume.
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Raise the speed to high, and whip for a few minutes until you reach stiff peaks. I can’t recommend how long exactly to whip the egg whites for, this will vary greatly depending on the mixer you are using.
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At this point, start to gradually add the granulated sugar.
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Once the whites are glossy, you see the whisk of the mixer forming streaks in the meringue, you might be done whipping.
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The stiff egg whites should have pointy peaks shooting right up, with maybe a slight very small bent at the top.
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Add the food coloring to the meringue. Also pour in the sifted dry ingredients.
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Begin folding the batter with a spatula, in a J letter motion. This is called the macaronage.
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It’s time to stop folding when the batter looks glossy, and has a thick but flowing consistency.
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How to know when to stop folding the batter.
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First, pick up some batter with the spatula and begin to draw a figure 8 with the batter that is dripping off the spatula.
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If you can form several figure 8s with the spatula without the batter breaking up, it might be time to stop folding.
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There’s another test I like to perform, I call it the Teaspoon test.
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Grab a teaspoon full of batter and spoon onto the parchment paper or silicone mat. Give the baking sheet a little tap against the counter, and wait 1 minute. Watch how the batter behaves.
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If the batter spreads out slightly, but becomes smooth on top, it might be time to stop folding.
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If the spoonful of batter still has a peak on top, and hasn’t spread out too much, the batter needs to be folded a bit longer. In that case, fold it about 3 more times, and test again.
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You don’t want the batter to be too runny either. Be careful not to over mix. It’s always best to under mix, and keep testing until you achieve the proper consistency, but once you over mix, there’s no way of going back.
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The best way I can describe this stage being perfect is when you hold the spatula with batter on top of the bowl and the batter falls off the spatula slowly but effortlessly. The batter will keep flowing off the spatula non-stop, but not too quickly.
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Pour the batter in the piping bag.
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Place the piping bag directly 90 degrees over the center of each macaron template. Apply equal pressure and carefully pipe for about 3 seconds, and then quickly pull the bag up twisting slightly.
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Once you’ve piped as many circles as you could, bang the trays against the counter a few times each. This will release air bubbles that are in the batter and prevent your macaron shells from cracking.
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Use a toothpick to pop any air bubbles in the surface of the shells.
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With this method, you don’t need to rest the batter. You can immediately start baking, one tray at a time.
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I like to rotate my tray after the first 5 minutes baking to ensure even baking, you might not have to do that depending on how even the heat distribution is in your oven.
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Each tray should be baked from 15 to 17 minutes. It might vary according to your oven.
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Always make sure to have an oven thermometer in place.
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When baked the macarons will have a deeper color, will have formed feed. If you touch a macaron, it shouldn’t feel jiggly. If the macaron is still jiggly, keep baking for another minute or so, and test again.
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Remove the tray from the oven, and bake the next tray.
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Let the macarons cool down completely before removing them from the silicone mat, or parchment paper.
Guinness Ganache
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Heat the heavy cream and Guinness beer until they almost come to a boil.
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Pour over chopped chocolate, or chocolate chips.
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Let it sit for a minute.
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Whisk the mixture together until the chocolate has melted completely.
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If the chocolate is not melting and you still see little chunks of chocolate in the ganache, microwave the bowl for 5 second intervals, whisking in between, until all the chocolate has melted.
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Place the ganache in the fridge for about 40 minutes, until it cools down completely and firms up. Don’t leave it in the fridge too long or it might become too hard to pipe.
To assemble
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Place the ganache in a piping bag fitted with a small piping tip.
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Pipe a small amount of ganache on half of the shells. Top with another shell.
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You can also drizzle some ganache on top of the macarons and top with sprinkles to decorate.
Storage
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These St Patrick's Macarons can be stored in the fridge for up to 7 days, or in the freezer for up to 2 months. They will freeze pretty well. Check the post above to see the container I use to freeze my macarons.
Recipe Notes
*Oven temperature: This is a very delicate and quite personal number. It varies from oven to oven, and even from batter to batter. I recommend you test your oven to find out the optimal temperature to bake your macarons in.
*Whipping time: While I do write down a basic recommendation for how long to whip the egg whites in each speed, you should take note that the times might be different for you and will vary depending on your mixer.
*Macaronage time: Also, I do recommend folding the batter for about 5 minutes, however, have in mind that this will depend on how you actually fold the batter, on the consistency of the meringue. Always look for the cues I offer concerning what the batter is supposed to look like.
*Oven thermometer: ALWAYS, I repeat, always! have an oven thermometer in your oven to monitor the temperature. Home ovens are almost always inaccurate, and just a few degrees variation can make a complete difference in your macarons.