Black Widow Macarons
Preparation time: 1.5 hours
Cooking time: 1.5 hours
- 300g/10.6ozs. Tant Pour Tant (150g almond meal, 150g icing sugar)
- 60/2.12ozs egg whites (let's call this lot 1)
- 150g/65.21ozs. caster or superfine sugar
- 37g/1.3ozs. water
- Black food colouring
- 60g/2.12ozs. egg whites (lot 2)
Buttercream
- 125g/4.3ozs. butter, at room temperature (Jessica uses Pepe Saya cultured butter)
- 65g/2.2 ozs caster or superfine suagar
- 35mls/1.23 fl ozs. room temperature water, test with wrist
- Purple food colouring gel
- -Blackberry flavouring oil (I use Lorann)
Royal Icing (this will make more than you need)
- 1 egg white
- 200g/7ozs icing or confectioner's sugar
- Black food colouring
- 250g/8.8ozs. crunchy blackberry gums
- Tiny purple cachous
Step 1 - Sieve the tant pour tant well with a fine sieve. I hate this part, honestly. Sifting and transcribing are my two most hated tasks apart from talking to Henry (haha!). Mix lot 1 of the egg whites with the TPT and mix to a thick paste.
Step 2 - Place the caster sugar, water and black food colouring (go quite strong with this, about 1/2 teaspoon depending on what kind of colouring you use) in a heavy bottomed saucepan. Place lot 2 of the egg whites in a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Have a temperature gun ready. Heat the sugar and melt the sugar and then bring to a boil until it reaches 110C/230F. Start the whisking process for the egg whites and when the sugar syrup reaches 118C/244F then pour it into the fluffy egg whites and whisk for 1 minute on high. Then reduce speed to medium for 2 minutes or until the mixture reduces down to 50C/122F.
Step 3 - Line 3-4 baking trays with parchment or silpats (I find best results with silpats). Place the mixture in a piping bag fitted with a plain size 11 nozzle. Pipe desired sizes making sure to leave about an inch between each one. Allow to sit until a skin forms-this can take anything from 15 minutes to over an hour and it depends on the weather conditions. If you have air conditioning, you can switch it onto cool and this will help speed it up (very humid conditions are not ideal for making macarons).
Step 4 - When you can touch the surface of the macarons and it doesn't stick they are ready to bake. Bake in a 150C/300F oven for 30 minutes. I bake one tray at a time as sometimes the bottom tray doesn't bake as well and doesn't form feet. Allow to cool for 10 minutes on the silpat and they will pull away perfectly.
Step 5 - I never make the buttercream until the macarons are done (because I tried these last year and they totally flopped, tricky little buggers). On speed 3 (out of 10 so quite slow) using a beater attachment beat the butter for 5 minutes and then add the sugar and water in two lots and beat for an additional 8 minutes. Add colouring and blackberry flavouring and beat for another 2 minutes.
Step 6 - Fit a piping bag with a star tip and place the buttercream in the piping bag. Separate macarons into matching size pairs. Pipe the buttercream on one half and sandwich together. Place in the fridge until ready.
Step 7 - Make the royal icing. Add the icing sugar to a food processor and process until all lumps are gone. Add the egg white and test the consistency. You want it to be able to hold a fine line-sift more icing sugar into the mix if it isn't stiff enough or add a drop of water if it is too stiff.
Step 8 - Place into a small piping bag (I make one out of parchment) and attach one blackberry gum on top of each macaron pair. Pipe patterns onto the macarons and then drop a couple of pearl cachous for eyes. Allow to set completely. Store in the fridge until needed. These are delicate but also freeze well but are best frozen without the royal icing detail and the gummy.