Easter is coming!
Last year I made chocolate bunny macarons which looked fairly horrific. Rather than trying again this year I decided to make some different Easter-themed macarons.
These were so much easier - no crazy piping involved. The hot cross bun and chicks are simply normal sized round macarons with royal icing detail. For the egg shaped ones, I started to pipe a circle as normal, then stretched it out to make it an oval. The technique and recipe I use to make macarons can be found here with step-by-step photos.
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| Easter Egg Macarons |
The Easter egg macarons are filled with a salted caramel dark chocolate ganache filling, adapted from a recipe by Adriano Zumbo.
Salted Caramel Chocolate Ganache
To fill approximately 16 eggs
75g cream
10g cocoa butter, finely chopped
60g caster sugar
120g dark chocolate, chopped
40g butter, softened
1 big pinch salt flakes
- Place cream and cocoa in a small saucepan and heat on a low-med heat until just boiling.
- Meanwhile, put the sugar in a medium saucepan and heat on a low heat until the sugar melts and turns a deep golden colour. DO NOT STIR. Shake the saucepan to prevent the sugar from burning.
- Pour the boiling cream over the caramel and whisk until smooth. The cream will release lots of steam so be careful.
- Place the chocolate in a bowl and pour over the caramel cream mixture. Leave to sit for 1-2mins then stir until smooth. Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes.
- With a sitck blender, blitz in the butter, then fold through the sugar.
- Leave to sit at room temperature until thick enough to pipe.
The chick macarons are filled with a lemon curd buttercream. Unfortunately I didn't measure what I was doing but basically I mixed approximately 1/2 cup homemade lemon curd together with 1 cup of buttercream. If the mixture looks too runny, either add more buttercream or do what I do and add in some almond meal as it doesn't dull the lemony taste as much.
The filling for the hot cross bun macaron is again courtesy of Mr Zumbo. I highly recommend his little book Zumbarons (Zumbo, the large book I don't use so much.) I love his quirky flavour combinations - think vegemite macarons, choc mayo, fingerbun, gin & tonic in addition to the usual suspects.
His hot crossed bun ganache recipe uses both a soaked hot cross bun and hot cross bun crumbs, however as I needed to make these gluten free, I omitted these and added extra raisins and spices. Last year I followed it exactly as per the recipe and it was delicious!
Hot Cross Bun Ganache
(to fill 24 macarons)
60g cream
1/8 tsp cloves
1/8 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp mixed spice
80g white chocolate
20g unsalted butter, softened
10g candied orange peel, finely chopped
40g raisins, finely chopped (fine enough so they can fit through a piping nozzle!)
Place the cream and spices in a small saucepan and heat until just boiling.
Place white chocolate in a bowl and pour over cream mixture, leave to stand for 2 minutes then stir.
Leave the ganache to cool for 5 minutes then blitz in the butter with a stick blender.
Fold through orange peel and raisins.
Leave to sit at room temperature until thick enough to pipe.
How about making some macarons for the chocolate-hating people out there (or those in a chocolate coma) for Easter?
Sarah xx
