Macaron Attempt #2

Last weekend I had my second attempt at macarons. This time I did it properly and made Salted Milk Chocolate Caramel Zumbarons.

I picked up some powdered egg whites from the Melbourne Food Ingredient Depot (who do online orders). Cost $19 for 170g and the recipe to make 100 macaron shells (50 double) only requires 2g. I imagine it will last me a while!

The lovely assistant in the store told me that for best results I should age my egg whites, letting them sit through a sieve to get rid of the membranes and leaving them overnight if they're not old eggs.
Sifting sugar.

And my sifted Almond Meal...definitely the worst part, I think I need to find some finer stuff to start with next time.

Looks free of lumps at least.
Here's the sugar syrup getting to the right temperature.
And the egg whites + powder mixture being beaten.

After this we poured (was a 2 person job) the sugar syrup into the egg white mix while I was beating it.

After that we forgot to take photos...
The sugar syrup and beaten egg whites were then folded into the almond meal and sugar and cocoa powder mixture to produce these little turds macaron shells.

The consistency of the mixture wasn't right, too thick, so the shells didn't settle enough and it made 5 or so less than it was supposed to.

Oh well, will know for next time.

Happy little shells baking in the oven.

And here they are cooling down. I ended up putting them in the freezer overnight deciding to make the filling the following night instead.

This is the salted caramel chocolate mix for the inside...

And here they are all finished.

Some of them looked pretty decent, I think there is a nice foot on the base of most of them so that's an improvement to last time.

The taste like Mars Bars in macaron form. I cheated too by the way, top and bottom are both chocolate flavoured though the recipe calls for chocolate tops and plain but caramel coloured bottoms. Seemed like too much effort!

I put them in the fridge overnight and shared a few at work. The rest then went into the freezer (where they can apparently keep for 2-3 months). SJ and I have been having one every other night (okay, every night), just take them out of the freezer and allow to defrost to room temperature...sooo good.

I'd share the recipe but I think it would take a few pages (well it does in the Zumbo cookbook anyway!)


I'm going to try a few more flavours over the next few weeks and freeze some of those too, then hopefully get an invite somewhere I can take a selection to and show off...