Bonjour, mes amis! Welcome to another delicious edition of Just Eat! I am so thrilled about this post, I have been brainstorming ideas for weeks! Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and I have wanted to do a special recipe for all my lovely foodies for a while. Valentine’s Day, what is it about? Commercial chocolates in heart-shaped boxes? No. Dozens of roses? No. A reason to go out to dinner? No. Love? BINGO! When I think of love in my life, my mind instantly goes to one thing, other than my family, FRANCE! When I think of France, I think of my visits to Paris.
When I think of Paris, I think of my daily visit to get a macaron from Pierre Hermé, Ladurée, Pain du Sucre, Carl Marletti, and everywhere else!
With this logic, I feel the only way I can show my love for all my readers is through the MACARON! We can’t just have any plain ‘ole macaron, not that there is anything wrong with that. We need one that screams Valentine’s Day, love, and all that jazz. I have it!
Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Macarons! Yum!
These babies are traditional macaron shells filled with strawberry preserves and dipped in dark chocolate! Oh my, they are DELICIOUS!
For those that have never attempted macarons, do not me intimidated! They are very simple to make, just watch the oven temperature.
Macarons à la fraise couvert de chocolat (Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Macarons)
I have included cups for those without scales, but results may vary! It is best to measure by weight.
Ingredients:
- 190 grams Almond Meal (~1 1/3 cups)
- 310 grams Powdered Sugar (~2 4/5 cups)
- 150 grams Aged Egg Whites (Leave at room temp for a day in a cool room or place in fridge for 4 days) (~5 eggs)
- 95 grams Sugar (~7/16 cups)
- 1/2 tsp Red Food Coloring (Gel, not liquid)
- 1.5 cups Strawberry Preserves
- Dark Chocolate for Melting/Dipping (I used Wilton’s Candy Melts)
Directions:
1. In a large and clean bowl, sift almond meal and powdered sugar.
2. Stir mixture with a wooden spatula to distribute ingredients evenly.
3. In a bowl, place egg whites and beat on high using a hand mixer or Kitchenaid mixer.
4. When you are able to lift the beaters up and see that stiff peaks are forming, stop beating.
5. Add sugar in three installments, beating on high after each.
6. Once all sugar has been added, beat until still peaks form again.
7. Add food coloring and beat until stiff peaks reform and color is even.
8. Add meringue to almond meal mixture and begin folding in.
9. Fold in until just combined.
10. Using a pastry scraper or something with a grease-proof straight-edge, slowly pass over the batter going back and form, press lightly. (This reduces air in the batter by forcing them out and popping air bubbles.)
11. Pipe macaron shells onto parchment-paper lined sheets using a piping bag with medium round tip. (You can also make heart shapes for added Valentine’s Day flare!)
12. Bake at 150 degrees Celsius or 300 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes. (Be careful about temperature!)
13. Let cool, then flip over and gently press your index finger into center of each, making a small indention.
14. Match shells up to another similar shell.
15. Pipe about 1 tsp of preserves into the center of 1 macaron shell from each pair.
16. Close shells and press gently to distribute preserves.
17. Melt chocolate in a heat-proof bowl.
18. Dip half of each macaron in chocolate and let dry.
19. Macarons need to sit for 24 hours for optimal flavor. Then, enjoy!
These in a little cute box tied with ribbon or served on a pretty platter make such a great gift for that special someone! The crispness of the outer macaron shell and chocolate with the soft and moist center of the macaron’s strawberry preserves mimic the chocolate-covered strawberry so well! The flavor is on point, too! The preserves keep the strawberry flavor and juiciness and goes so well with the dark chocolate! I am just in LOVE with them! I literally ate almost a dozen myself! This recipe will make about 3 dozen 1.5″ macaron, so I put the rest in precious little brown boxes and tied them with blue string for some of my other single friends for the holiday. We single ladies help each other out! Haha!
Alright, that does it for this edition! Be sure to return on Thursday for another Tasty Thursday video entry and recipe! Be sure to enter the big giveaway going on right now!
I am giving away a Fujifilm Finepix S2950 and HOMEMADE vanilla extract! Click here to enter!
À bientôt!
Yuuum! I love macarons
It’s such a perfect way to re-experience a piece of Europe when I’m homesick. I love your heart-shaped version!
So perfect for Valentines’s!
I have been wanting to try my hand at Macarons for a long time. You just gave me the push I needed.Thank You for the great post.
Oh, those look so cute! Dipping them in chocolate really puts them over the top!
They look great, you giant!
Very cute, and very yummy!
Hey Chef JoshuaAlan,
So about the red food coloring…how critical is it that it is gel food coloring? I don’t have any, and won’t get any before Wednesday. I have the little bottles of liquid. I know the color won’t be as intense, but I wonder if you have tried the liquid color and approve/disapprove if that’s all you have? I know you said gel specifically, not liquid, so I wondered.
Thanks!
so, yeah… I have yet to make macarons. I have all the ingredients, have watched a zillion videos, read books, practiced it all in my mind– and I need to just do it, for crying out loud! Aged egg whites…. I’ve read that, too. You make it sound so easy. I want macarons!
Oh wow, those look good. I have been wanting to make macarons but am chicken lol. I like the step by step instructions here and this may be enough to get me to give them a try.
Well, for my first time ever making macarons, I must say that was frightening and fun. I think I figured out the piping–a video of you piping them might be very helpful for people like me who are nervous about making them (unless there is one somewhere and I missed it?).
They turned out DIVINE. Oh goodness. I had some before that were too much like meringue cookies, also too sweet, but these were crunchy and a bit chewy, and the flavor. Oh my! PERFECT. Not too sweet, not too plain, and a lovely flavor of almond. WOW.
My only problem is I only got eight (halves) that actually LOOKED like macarons. They had feet and everything! Those were put together for my Mom-in-law, who will get four beautiful complete macarons tomorrow. My variation was to use rasperry jam (made with sugar, not corn syrup) AND chocolate ganache in the middle. My Mom-in-law loves macarons, and she loves chocolate, so I had to work that in there–but I knew she wouldn’t want them dipped in chocolate. That would have been too much.
So assuming you have any left over after the family gets at them, what is the best way to store them? Also, what causes them to be too flat, have no feet, or to crack on top–OR worse yet, to be hard on top but collapse inward on themselves? That happened to me too. Not sure what I did, since eight halves came out so perfectly.
Oh, and I am not sure if my oven is too cold or what, but I had to double the baking time. Eight minutes and my macarons were too runny in the middle, and the tops came right off when I tried to pick one up.
lol
Thank you for a divinely delicious recipe. I can’t wait to see my Mom-in-law’s reaction tomorrow!!
Bon Appetit from Maine!
BTW, here is a picture of the successes. Merci, bon ami!
http://twitpic.com/8ipfoi
Your macarons are absolutely beautiful!!! So perfect for Valentine’s Day! I love the pictures of you in Paris