Friday 2 January 2015

Passion Fruit and Chocolate Macarons




Hello! I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas. Reality is slowly starting to worm its way back into our lives, but there is always macarons and brioche and other sweet treats to help us escape our January blues.

Today passion fruit and chocolate ganache is encased in cheetah like shells. I used these as part of my Christmas gift bags, which also included sea salt caramels and grapefruit marshmallows.

Use milk rather than dark chocolate here, as the dark chocolate would be too bitter with the passion fruit and as always with macarons, fill and allow to 'mature' for 24 hours. This will allow the ganache to soften the shells providing a delicious mallowy centre.  

Follow the recipe for the shells here, using a lighter yellow food colouring. Sprinkle the shells lightly with cocoa powder ten minutes before putting into the oven.

For the passion fruit chocolate ganache

8-9 passion fruits
275g milk chocolate (40% chocolate solids)
50g butter, at room temperature and diced

1. Scoop the flesh out of the passion fruits, seeds and all.
2. Blend with a hand held blender for 30 seconds until the seeds are broken down, if not completely.
3. Strain through a fine mesh sieve into a small saucepan, removing all the seeds.
4. Heat over a gentle heat until the passion fruit purée is almost boiling.
5. Put the chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of boiling water until it is just starting to melt.
6. Pour over the passion fruit purée and stir clockwise until the ganache is smooth and creamy. If the ganache curdles, add a dash of cold milk and continue to stir.
7. Add the butter one cube at a time and stir until well incorporated and the ganache is glossy.
8. Pour into a clean bowl, cover with clingfilm and allow to cool and thick enough to pipe.
9. Pipe the ganache onto the macarons and sandwich together.


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