How to recreate Sam Pack’s mouthwatering macarons

Everyone loves macarons but not many people know how to master the delicate light bites.

Sam Pack, owner of cook school Cooks Day Off which is based at her family home in Kintore, has shown us how to make the perfect set of macarons.

Featuring a decadent dark chocolate ganache filling, we already know what we’ve got planned for the weekend…

Ingredients

• 70g ground almonds
• 115g icing sugar
• 70g egg whites (2 medium eggs)
• 50g caster sugar
• Food colouring (powder or paste)
• For the dark chocolate ganache filling:
• 150g Dark chocolate – flavour of your choice
• 130g Double cream

Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 150C.
2. Grind almond flour with icing sugar using a blender such as a Nutribullet (sugar prevents the almonds releasing oil).
3. Sieve the mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl.
4. To prepare your meringue, start whisking egg whites into the bowl and when doubled in size, add half of the caster sugar in and then whisk at maximum speed until glossy and firm.
5. Fold the flour and sugar mix. Don’t worry about the meringue as you need to create a mixture that is like “lava” consistency.
6. Add in your food colouring.
7. When the colour is completely blended, put the mixture in a piping bag with a nozzle of 0.8cm diameter.
8. Prepare parchment paper with circles the size of your choice. Remember to leave space between circles so the macarons can expand.
9. Bake the macarons for 13 minutes. Bake one tray at a time, otherwise you will create condensation which cracks the macarons on the lower tray.
10. Remove from oven.
11. To make the dark chocolate ganache, warm the cream almost to boiling point and then pour over chopped chocolate and whisk while it begins to melt. Remember not to boil the cream otherwise you will split the chocolate

For the filling

Cool the ganache in the fridge for at least 20 minutes and then pipe into the middle of the macarons. Place a second meringue on top and enjoy.