Chocolate and Peanut Butter Macaron

Hi Everyone,

I was enjoying my breakfast one morning, I flicked through gourmet traveler magazine in front of me, and I saw a macaron recipe. I told myself "That's it! I just have to make them." A couple of years ago, I was so overwhelmed by so many reviews on how challenging it is to make macaron, so I buried my eagerness deep down somewhere.

That morning I said to myself to get out of my comfort zone and start doing something different. I then told H about this, he responded positively which was good, considering I had a huge doubt about this idea.

When you search a recipe for macaron thousands of recipes will appear right away. So, this recipe might be a good addition to that. Since this is my first attempt in making macaron, I want to make it extra special, by doing a totally new ganache. I was inspired by peanut butter M&M that I bought months ago from Usa Foods. The salty peanut butter was beautifully encased  with a decadent chocolate layer.

So, after assembling the macaron, I gave H one macaron for him to try. His eyes were wide opened and in just a minute, he grabbed another one and another one. I know he loves it, and so do I.

Here is the recipe...

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Macaron

Macaron recipe is adapted from Helen Dujardin (Tartelette)

Ingredients:

100 g egg whites

50 g caster sugar

200 g pure icing sugar

110 g ground almond

100 g peanut butter chips

50 g dark chocolate (70% cocoa)

150 ml cream

Directions:

1.  Whip the egg whites until soft peaks, then gradually add sugar until you obtain a glossy meringue.

2. Combine almond and icing sugar in a food processor and pulse them quickly.

3. Add them to the meringue, and combine them well until you get a lava like mixture (no more than 50 stokes).

4.Fill a pastry bag with a plain tip (Ateco #11).
5. Pipe small rounds onto baking paper, let it stand for 30 minutes to 1 hour for the shell to harden.
6. Pre-heat the oven to 150C, bake for 10-12 minute, or until lightly golden.
7.  For the ganache: melt together peanut butter chips with dark chocolate and cream in a saucepan over low heat.

8. Once, the chocolate melted, set aside to cool, and thickened.

9. To assemble: Pipe the ganache in the middle of the macaron until it fills almost 3/4 of it. 

10. Sandwich the macaron with their other half.

'Till then,