Mint Chocolate Macaroons

After last week's attempt at macaroons I wanted to improve my technique. Last week information can be found here.This week I used the basic recipe found here and Gary came up with the flavour combination. 

The first step is to add the ground almonds and icing sugar to the food processor and turn it on. I don't know what this is meant to achieve but, apparently, it's a vital step. 

Ground almonds and icing sugar in the processor. 

Whilst this is spinning, whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks. 

Soft peaks in the egg whites

Gradually add the sugar until the mixture is smooth and glossy. 

Glossy and smooth

This is the step at which we can add some colour to the macaroons. I decided to go for green as this matched the flavour combinations the filling would contain. I used gel colours in order to keep the consistency but add strong colour. 

It's Green!! 

Finally fold in the sieved almond/icing sugar mixture. This is folded until the mixture is smooth and glossy but be careful not to beat too much air out of it. I found this very difficult to judge and I think I folded a little too much. this can be seen later when we look at the macaroons as they're out of the oven. 

Almonds and icing sugar folded in.

The mixture is then placed in a piping bag and small circles are piped onto lined baking trays. These are left to form a skin, this takes around 30-60 minutes. 

The macaroons are then cooked in the oven for 13 minutes. I think mine could have done with a few more minutes as the texture is still quite chewy once out of the oven. I've never eaten proper macaroons so I'm not sure what the texture of them is like but  I would prefer them to be cruncher. 

Trays taking up my whole kitchen as I wait for them to form a skin.

To make these macaroons mint chocolate I added the flavour to the filling. First step was to make a chocolate ganache, this is done by heating 100ml of double cream until it's almost at boiling point. To this I then added 100g of milk chocolate and stirred it in until melted. I then added 1 tsp of peppermint extract. This mixture was left to cool overnight so it was thick. I then attempted to pipe it into the macaroons but my piping bag split so in the end I had to spoon it in. This meant there wasn't as much filling as I would like. 

The finished product. T

The verdict: I would like there to be more filling in these macaroons as the flavour was lost slightly, I'd also like the macaroons to be crunchier, this could be achieved by cooking for longer. Next time I won't fold the mixture in quite so much so the macaroons aren't so flat. Having said that the chocolate filling was delicious, I could eat that on it's own, and I really like the flavour of the macaroons. This is surprising because I don't like meringue. I would give these 7/10, still improvements to be made. I like making macaroons though as there are lots of flavour combinations I could think of.