Spicy Chocolate French Macarons

Do you ever feel alone? I do! My house does consist of 1 wife, 1 grandma, 2 cats, 1 dog, and 6 chickens (outside of course). So why do I feel alone? Well, that wife and that grandma don't like spicy stuff. On top of that, they are not too crazy about chocolate either. So now you can see where my loneliness stems from. I decided to make something that I would love and they would look at with utter disgust. That's where these spicy chocolate macarons come in to play. Your first bite will go something like this: as the chocolate slowly starts to melt in your mouth, you will begin to wonder where the spiciness is. Just as you start thinking that I lied to you, BAM! the heat will kick you were it hurts. Maybe I'm not so good with story telling, but I can guarantee you that I'm a whole lot better at making delicious macarons.

Spicy Chocolate French Macarons
Makes 56 small filled macarons (1.5 inches)

 What you'll need:

     Macaron Shells:

2 3/4 cups - almond flour (I like unblanched but most use blanched)

2 3/4 cups - powdered sugar

1 cup - egg whites (from 7-8 eggs) at room temperature

pinch of salt

3/4 cup - superfine granulated sugar

enough red food coloring to get desired color

     Spicy Chocolate Ganache:

1/2 cup (4.4 ounces) - heavy cream

8.8 ounces - chocolate, chopped

3/4 teaspoon - cayenne pepper

Instruction:

Preheat the oven to 325 and line your baking sheets with parchment paper.

Blend the almond flour with the powdered sugar in the food processor to make mixture as fine as possible (or sift together, discarding any large crumbs and adding a bit more almond flour and powdered sugar as needed to compensate). Sift the mixture through a strainer until it's as fine as you can get it. This keeps crumbs from forming on the macaron tops as they bake.

With the wire whip attachment on the electric mixer, beat the egg whites with the salt and the powdered egg whites (if you're using), starting slowly and then increasing speed as the whites start to rise. Add the granulated sugar. Beat until the egg whites form stiff peaks and your meringue is firm and shiny.

Fold the egg whites into the almond meal mixture, using a rubber spatula. Now hit the spatula against the rim of the bowl until the batter falls in a wide ribbon when you raise the spatula. When you can't see any crumbs of almond flour and the mixture is shiny and flowing you're done mixing.

 Fit your pastry bag with a number 806 round tip or equivalent. Pipe the batter into even circles. I like to pipe mine about 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 inch diameter but you can make them bigger or smaller if you'd like. Be sure to leave about 1/2 inch of space between macarons so they will not touch each other while they bake. (If the peak that forms on the top of the macaron doesn't disappear after piping, it means the batter could have been beaten a little more. To eliminate the peaks, tap the baking sheet on the tabletop, making sure to hold the parchment paper in place with your thumbs).

 Let the piped macarons rest for 20 minutes before baking. Sift a little cocoa powder on your shells now if you want to.

 Bake for 14 minutes. After the first 5 minutes, open the oven door briefly to let the steam out. Don't forget to do this, it's very important to get the excess moisture out of your oven.

Let the macarons cool completely on the pan before taking them off the parchment paper. Press the bottom of a cooled baked macaron shell with your finger; it should be soft. If it's hard, reduce the baking time for the rest of your macarons from 14 minutes to 13 minutes.

For the ganache, place the chocolate and cayenne pepper in a large bowl. In a saucepan over medium heat, bring the cream to a simmer. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and let set for a few minutes. Whisk the ganache until smooth. Put in the refrigerator until piping consistency.  

Once the macaron shells are cooled, pipe a small amount of gancahe on to the middle of one shell. Very gently twist another shell on top of the ganache.

Store the filled macarons in the refrigerator. The ganache will harden so let the macarons sit out for 10-15 minutes before serving. Enjoy!

Tips:

Almond meal or almond flour is just finely ground almonds. You can buy it blanched and unblanched. When almonds are blanched, it means that the outer skin has been removed. I like unblanched almond meal because I like the look of the little specks of the skin in the finished macarons.

If using unblanched almonds like me, it helps to sift the almond meal as your measuring it out to insure you don't have any big pieces of skin in your mixture.

If you "age' your egg whites in the refrigerator for one day in advance, it will help a little of the moisture evaporate, giving you a better chance of success. If you don't have time to do this don't worry, just add about 5 minutes to the resting time before baking and that will help.  

If you live in a very humid area, add 2 teaspoons of powdered egg whites to your fresh egg whites to help stabilize.

It's harder than you think to make consistent circles with the batter. I made myself a template to put under the parchment so I know that all of my shells will be exactly the same. My template has fifteen 1 3/4 inch diameter circles. Once you pipe the shells onto the parchment, you just pull out the template to pipe the next batch.

Remember, these are very temperamental things to make, if your first batch or even second batch doesn't come out quite so pretty don't worry, you WILL get the hang of it and make perfect macarons. Practice makes perfect!