I have never tasted the real macaron from the master, Pierre Herme itself. I may have tried a couple of his recipes and loved it, but still, it’s not the same. Just like how a recipe, given to 10 people will yield 10 different results. Anyway, this is like the ‘famed’ flavour of passionfruit and milk chocolate. You can find the recipe all over the internet as there are a few that has done it already. Or you can get the book “Macaron” which is in English now.

This was actually made for a bake sale thingy for Christmas. I used felchin’s 38.5% Milk Chocolate Rondo for the ganache as I only had Valrhona Guanaja 70% and Ivoire on hand. Now I remember, the ganache wasn’t like any other regular ganache with just an emulsion of cream and chocolate. This one is with passionfruit juice and butter instead. It’s a rather buttery, yet tangy ganache. With the use of milk chocolate, it can be sweeter than using dark. But the sourness of the passionfruit helps to balance the sweetness. If you wish, you can do a 25% substitution with dark chocolate; But I don’t find it necessary as long as you use good quality couverture milk chocolate.

As for passionfruit, because it’s very easily available here in this tropical climate, using fresh is a much better choice. Wrinkled skin is a sign of ripeness. If u’re feeling warm from the weather, just cut open a chilled passionfruit, sip the juice and gobble up the seeds. “AAaahhhhh…. ”

Macaron Mogador

Ingredients

(makes about 72 macarons),

adapted from Pierre Herme’s “Macarons”

300g ground almond
300g icing sugar
110g aged egg whites
5g lemon yellow food colouing

300g sugar
75g water
110g aged egg whites

Cocoa powder (for dusting shells)

Ganache

100g unsalted butter, room temp
550g Couverture milk chocolate ( Valrhona Jivara 40%)
10 passionfruits (for 250ml passionfruit juice)

Method:

Make Ganache.

1. Cut butter into pieces. Half the passionfruit, scoop out the pulp and strain to obtain 250g of juice. (pic above)
2. Take it to a boil.
3. Melt chocolate over a bain marie. Pour in juice 3 times over the chocolate while stirring.
4. When the mixture temperature is at 60°C,  add the butter pieces a few at a time. This would take quite a while. Stir until the ganache is smooth.
5. Pour into a clean bowl / dish. Cover the ganache by pressing clingfilm over the surface. Set aside in the fridge for the ganache to semi-harden.

Make Macaron

1. Sift almond meal, icing sugar in a wide bowl. Add in the egg white and colouring and mix well. Do this only when you’re ready to cook the sugar, otherwise it gets hard.
2. In a medium sized pot, pour in caster sugar and water. Bring to a boil and to 118 C. Which means that yes you need a candy thermometer. When the sugar syrup reaches 108 C, in a mixing bowl, whisk egg whites. It should be somewhat medium peaks when the sugar syrup reaches 118 C.
3. While the mixer is still whisking (about medium speed), gradually pour in the sugar syrup. Then turn up the speed of the mixer for about 2 minutes till it turns glossy. Reduce the speed to medium and let it whisk till it’s stiffer. It should be somewhat stiff, but not so stiff.
4. Now, add in 1/4 of the meringue into the almond mixture from step 1. Whack it till it’s well incorporated. At this first step, I usually literally do it un-TLC-ly just to get some air out from the meringue and to lighten the almond mix. With the remaining 3/4 of meringue, add into the almond mix and fold it in. This time, a little more TLC until it becomes lava like.
5. I’m using a 10mm nozzle. Fit into a piping bag and scoop the batter into the bag. Pipe onto a tray lined with parchment paper or silpat. Lightly tap the tray on a table top. Let it rest for about 10 minutes. Dust cocoa powder over the top, then bake at 150 C for 14 minutes.
6. When it’s cooked, remove from the oven and let it cool on a rack. Once it’s completely cool, it should be able to peel off easily.

Assemble

1. Pipe a generous mould of ganache on to half of the shells. Top with another shell, of the same size of course.
2. Store the macarons for 24 hours in the fridge and bring out 30 mins before serving.

I really liked the flavour of passionfruit and milk chocolate, even better than jaffa or mint and chocolate.

I am thinking of extracting the flavour of mogador, and make it into a cake or, say, verrine? Tart perhaps.