French Chocolate Macarons! :)

Hiya!
This week was a great week. Mainly because, I made macarons! As in French Macarons. I absolutely love these! They taste SO good. But the problem is, these cookies are probably THE most temperamental and frustrating cookies to make. They are super-duper finicky and the slightest little mistake could make them all go wrong. But as they say, "Practice makes perfect", and I've made these many times, sometimes failing, sometimes not, but every time, I have been getting practice.

So, if you end in tears on the first time, don't be too sad, because that's what happened to me. You WILL need practice. If you make these the first time and they are perfect, you my friend, are a miracle worker. But hopefully, in any case, they still taste good!

Below is my favorite recipe for the chocolate version of these macarons. And if you do make the brave decision (you'll need some elbow grease and courage) to bake these, I wish you good luck!

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Preheat the oven to 160C. Line a baking tray with baking paper, not wax paper.

Now, grab your ingredients.

You will need:

- 2 egg whites, at room temperature

- 1 cup powdered/icing sugar

- 1/2 cup almond flour/finely ground almonds

- 3 tbsp cocoa powder

- 5 tbsp caster sugar

First, process the cocoa powder and almond flour together in a food processor to get rid of the lumps.

Next, take a large bowl, and whip the egg whites on high till they're foamy. Once they are at the point where you can't see liquid, just foam, add the caster sugar and whip till nice and stiff and really glossy! Remember: make sure you have NO yolks in your whites, otherwise they won't whip.

Now, take a separate bowl, and sift in your icing sugar, cocoa and almond flour. Make sure you do this step because you don't want bumpy macarons.

Now for the extremely dangerous part! This is where it might all go wrong. So be VERY careful!
Take about 1/3 of your dry mix and add that to the meringue (egg white mixture). Then GENTLY fold it in. DO NOT MIX, FOLD! If you mix the meringue will deflate in about 3 mixes. So fold gently.

Add in the rest of they dry ingredients and FOLD. Go around the batter, cut through the middle and repeat. Gently. Then, when you reach a slow flowing, lava-like consistency, scoop the batter into a large piping or zip-lock bag. Oh, and if you do't know what lave looks like, just search it up ;)

Next, pipe out the batter in about 3.5 cm/1 inch circles on the baking sheet. You can also use templates or draw circles with a marker underneath the baking paper. Once you've piped them out, bang the tray on the counter around 2-3 times on each side then pop any larger air bubbles with a toothpick. Leave the shells to rest for about 15 minutes, but don't rest them for too long! They will start puffing up and cracking in the oven otherwise.

Then, bake at 160, on the middle rack, for 13-15 minutes, or until they come off the baking sheet cleanly. But, we are not done yet *groans*. It's time to make some filling for these!

I used my fave filling, chocolate ganache. I swear, I could eat this right outta the bowl (if only my mom hadn't stopped me), but you can use any filling you like. The choices are limitless! Chocolate buttercream, milk choc. ganache, Swiss buttecream, white chocolate ganache, Italian meringue etc.

Here's how you make it!

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First, grab your ingredients.

You will need:

- 4 ounces of milk chocolate
- 1/3 cup heavy cream
- 1 tsp butter

Start by heating the cream. But, don't be like me, I walked away ;)

Then, just pour it over the chocolate and the butter, leave it for a minute, then whisk. It's that easy!

I put mine in the fridge to let it set. Then, when my macarons were done, I scooped the ganache into a piping bag, piped it onto the macarons, and they were done!! Everybody loved them, including me! Oh, they were SO good, I wish I had one right now.

After the whole baking was FINALLY done, this is what I looked like.

But, it was totally worth it. My best friends enjoyed them too. I really hope you guys try this recipe out. And if it doesn't come out right the first time, just keep practicing!
See ya next time, Mariam.