I'm not sure about you, but sometimes I am a bit too competitive for my own good. I love a challenge, particularly a challenge with myself. I like to find something I've never made before, put my own spin on it and come up with a recipe...which usually ends up in several attempts before it is perfect. It's probably that I'm too stubborn for my own good more so than challenging myself...however this will work out swimmingly for you! The anger inducing stubbornness that also terrifies my husband (usually around attempt 2 or 3 he just offers wine and slowly backs away) has led me to several wonderful, user friendly recipes - like this one!
Tip: I bought a silicone macaron mat and tested it versus parchment paper. The mat yielded macarons that kept the shape of the piping and a soft peak seen in the photo above. They also took significantly longer to cook and were really hard to get off the mat. The parchment paper method is much more recommended for uniform, smooth, easy to remove cookies.
If you're a tea lover, especially green tea, you will love these Matcha Macarons. In the same respect, if you're not really into tea in general, you will still love these Macarons. The matcha gives just enough of the earthy, green tea flavor with all the added benefits of vitamins, antioxidants and a caffeine boost. The dark chocolate ganache is the perfect balance of chocolate and tang to keep these Matcha Macarons from tasting like chewing on sugar coated tea leaves. New to Matcha? Here's a great article from Eater.com all about the new popular tea.
You will need to set aside about 2 hours to make these. The bonus is, about 45 minutes to 1 hour of that time you can be doing something else while the macarons 'rest' before baking - it's a tough life being a macaron!
The recipe will yield 32 macarons (64 individual cookies before frosting.) You will need to pipe the macarons and the ganache. If you don't own a piping bag and tip, you can certainly just use a heavy duty plastic zip bag and cut off a corner. The one thing you can not skip is the parchment paper - trust me I learned this the hard way. For this recipe, you will also need a food scale.
Macarons are famous for being finicky little turds and though plenty of folks get results using standard US measurements, I found much better results when weighing my ingredients. This is the exact food scale I bought from Amazon, and I actually used it quite a lot even before starting HungerThirstPlay - it's worth the investment in my opinion.
Matcha Macarons
Ingredients
Matcha Macarons:
- 110 grams egg whites (room temperature (about 4 egg whites))
- 50 grams granulated sugar
- 200 grams confectioners sugar
- 100 grams almond meal (flour)
- 7 grams Matcha green tea (about 1tablespoon)
Dark Chocolate Ganache:
- 1 cup dark chocolate chips
- ½ cup sour cream
Instructions
- In a food processor, combine the confectioners sugar, almond meal, and matcha. Pulse until all ingredients are finely combined. Set aside.
- In a standing mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, begin to whisk the egg whites and add the granulated sugar right after you get the mixer started. Mix on medium speed until egg whites form firm peaks. (If you stop the mixer and lift the whisk it will form a peak and doesn't drip off the attachment they are ready.)
- Using a rubber spatula, delicately fold in the dry ingredients to combine without breaking the fluffy egg whites - exactly 40 turns with the spatula to get the perfect consistency with combined ingredients. Carefully transfer mixture to a piping bag with a round piping tip and pipe 1.5" circles onto baking sheets fitting with parchment paper.
- Once piped, hit the baking sheets on the counter top to release the air bubbles in the cookies.
- Preheat your oven to 300F and let the cookies rest for about 45 minutes to 1 hour. The cookies will be ready when they develop a 'skin' and you can touch the cookie and the batter does not stick to your finger. Bake one tray at a time, one the middle rack of your oven, for 20-25 minutes.
For the Dark Chocolate Ganache:
- Melt the dark chocolate chips in a heat proof bowl over a sauce pan with barely simmering water.
- Once chocolate has melted, remove from heat and let cool lightly - about 5 minutes. Carefully fold in sour cream until completely incorporated. Fit into a piping bag with a small round tip or just cut the tip off the bag if you use disposable plastic bags. Pipe the ganache onto the flat side of a macaroon and top with the flat side of another macaron.
Notes
Nutrition
Enjoy your beautiful French Macarons. Try a hot cup of coffee or frothy latte with these sweet treats and imagine yourself on a quaint sidewalk cafe overlooking the Eiffel Tower! La vie est belle!
Leave a Reply