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Sunday 20 May 2012

The Great Macaron Challenge!

When I saw that the 'We should Cocoa' blog challenge was to combine chocolate and almonds,  I knew that it was time to overcome my fear and make chocolate macarons!  I decided to tweet my intention just to make sure I didn't back out and Sue, from A little bit of heaven on a plate, tweeted right back that she would make them if I would!  And so the Great Macaron Challenge had begun.

 I am fortunate enough to own a copy of 'Mad about Macarons!' by Jill Colonna and used the technique and recipe in there for the Dark Chocolate Macarons.  Everything was very precise and very clearly explained with text and step-by-step photographs.

This is the mixture or macaronnage with all the air pushed out of the beaten egg whites and the ground almonds, cocoa and icing sugar.


The mixture was then piped onto baking sheets covered with baking paper.  If I'm going to be making many of these I will invest in a macaron mat to make it easy to make them all the same size.

Yes, they are rather flat (more practice required) but at least there is an obvious 'foot' which pleased me no end.


The filling is a chocolate/coffee ganache, and I was pleased that when they were put together, the macarons looked more like they should.

Sadly, Sue's macarons did not work out, not even enough to show on her blog.  I hope she will have another go, I definitely will be making more.



We should Cocoa is being hosted this month by Laura at How to Cook Good Food  full details of the challenge are available on Choclette's Chocolate Log Blog  the other founding member of this challenge is Chele at Chocolate Teapot who is taking a bit of a break just now.

Labels: , , , ,

posted by Janice @ 20:15

13 Comments:

At 20 May 2012 at 20:41 , Anonymous Lauralovescakes said...

Ooooo well done...your macaroons look fab...you've tamed the beast! I've never tried making chocolate macaroons before! :-)

 
At 20 May 2012 at 21:02 , Blogger Choclette said...

Can't believe those are your first attempt Janice, they look amazing. Very well done you. Thanks for a great contribution to WSC.

 
At 20 May 2012 at 21:11 , Anonymous laura@howtocookgoodfood said...

I am so impressed with your first attempt Janice, and not surprised that you will be making more! So would I if they turned out as well as yours.
This is such a good entry for We Should Cocoa. Thanks so much and i hope you enjoyed the challenge greatly!

 
At 20 May 2012 at 21:22 , Blogger Karen S Booth said...

VERY well done Janice, it is hard to believe that this is your first attempt at macarons, they are FAB! I am total awe! Karen

 
At 20 May 2012 at 23:00 , Anonymous Esther said...

Very impressive!

I am yet to overcome my fear of making macaroons! LOL

Well done on your great effort :)

 
At 21 May 2012 at 01:15 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

I feel like we lived in parallel universe for a while here lol. I did my first ones for We Should Cocoa :) Yours definitely look like a big fat success to me. All the scare stories about them, were we lucky to succeed on the first attempt? Was it the recipes we used? Something else? Who knows lol. You did really well with uniformity and once you start piping 1000s they're gonna be nanometre perfect ;)

 
At 21 May 2012 at 09:22 , Anonymous Jill @ MadAboutMacarons said...

Janice, your macarons are wonderful. Bravo! Thanks for the shout-out. Doing the macaron dance with you. There's no stopping you now - sounds like you'll be hooked!

 
At 22 May 2012 at 20:58 , Blogger Hannah said...

Oh well done! My macarons never work out that well. I have pretty much given up on them but now I've seen yours I'm wondering if I'm just making them too big.

 
At 22 May 2012 at 22:19 , Blogger Traceyr said...

OOO Macaroons Janice you are brave. :)

 
At 23 May 2012 at 07:00 , Blogger Susie @ Fold in the Flour said...

These do look fab - and chocolate Macarons are delish! I found Jill Colconna's method pretty easy for making them and - touches wood - I haven't had a problem yet! :)

 
At 23 May 2012 at 21:56 , Blogger Unknown said...

lovely - well done they are great for a first attempt. I find the macaronage step the hardest to get right and mine end up to full of air these days. Must try harder I guess!

 
At 23 May 2012 at 23:53 , Blogger Unknown said...

Bravo! They look amazing! We'll see you joining in with Mactweets.blogspot.com yet!

 
At 18 September 2013 at 09:19 , Blogger Jacqueline Meldrum said...

They look wonderful Janice. I could happily tuck in right now!

 

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I love to read your comments and try to reply when I can. I have had to enable comment moderation due to high levels of spam, so it may take a little time before your comment is visible. Please let me know if you make one of my recipes or if you have any questions I will try to answer them. Janice

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