Orange Macarons

Before

1. 5 days in advance: prepare the egg whites, by leaving them in the fridge in a tight container
2. The same day: ensure the egg whites are at room temperature and preheat the oven at 160ºC (325 F). Also prepare 2 baking pans with parchment paper or silicone mats (I use Silpat mats).

Orange Whipped Ganache

1. Put the cream in a bowl that you can use in your microwave (you can also use a small pot and do it in the stove);
2. Chop white chocolate in small pieces (not super small though, a bit larger than chocolate chips) and put it in a bowl you can use with the immersion blender;
3. Mix the chocolate with the orange zest;
4. Heat the cream until it’s simmering in the borders, but not boiling;
5. Slowly pour the cream over the chocolate and mix with a spatula to allow the chocolate to melt, you should continue mixing until the chocolate is totally melted;
6. Add some drops of essential oil to taste, at this point add the food colouring if you want it;
7. Use a immersion blender to emulsify the ganache, this is to ensure the cream and the chocolate are completely incorporated;
8. Cover with a plastic film and cool it down in the fridge;
9. After it has cooled down you can whip the ganache with your immersion blender (using the whisk attachment) to give it a fluffy consistency, do not over whip otherwise you risk the cream become grainy;
10. Transfer the whipped ganache to a piping bag and store it in the fridge.

Macarons Shells

1. Sift confectioners sugar and then almond flour in the same bowl, mix them a bit. If you want even a softer texture on the macarons you can sift them again (the mixture of almond flour and sugar) or you can put the mixture in a food processor for 2 mins. If I am in a hurry, I usually only sift the ingredients once;
2. In a small cup mix half of the egg whites with the food colouring. Add 3 or 4 drops of orange or 1 drop of red and 2 of yellow (depending on how you strong you want the color you can add more food colouring);
3. Fold in the coloured egg whites into the sifter flour mixture with a spatula and combine them together until they are like a paste (do not beat); set the mixture aside;
4. Now you’ll need to make an Italian meringue. In a small saucepan put the granulated sugar and the water, also put the second half of egg whites in a stand mixer and start whipping at low speed;
5. Put the pot on the stove at medium heat to cook a “soft-ball” sugar syrup. Since the syrup is made with water you shouldn’t stir it to avoid crystallization. If you see sugar crystals on the sides of the pan you can use a brush with water to gently remove them. The sugar will dissolve first and start to make big bubbles which will become closer and closer. To know when the syrup has reached the point the best method is to use a candy thermometer and let the syrup get to 116-118 ºC (240-244 F). Another method is to have a small cold water bowl on the side of the pan and use a spoon to get a small portion of the syrup and drop it in the cold water. The syrup will harden as soon as it’s in the water, if you can form a soft caramel ball with that drop of syrup it means you reached the correct stage. If its harder then it’s too hot and if it forms just threads then the syrup is too cold;
6. While the the syrup is cooking you need to slowly increase the speed of your mixer, the egg whites need to be a white thick foam before you stir in the syrup;
7. Once the syrup is completed and without stopping the mixer, add it to the egg whites as a continue and thin stream (like a thread). Once all the syrup is incorporated increase the speed slowly until you reach the max;
8. The bowl of the mixer will be quite hot after you add the syrup, but as you continue whipping it will cool down. The goal is to reach a point where the bowl is warm so you can grab it with your hands and and hold it for some time without feeling any burning sensation. Once it reached that point stop the mixer. Meringue should be stiff. Following the steps to make the meringue correctly will help you to get it stable enough to allow the macarons to rise properly, don’t break the shells and develop their characteristic “feet”;
9. Macaronage: is the process of combining the 2 previous mixtures and it’s one of the most important steps when making macarons. Meringue will have lots of air in it, and in this step you want to remove some of it but not all. Some recipes call out that you have to mix the dry ingredients into the meringue. Since there are not any dry ingredients anymore (because you already added aged egg whites to the almond and sugar mixture) you’ll do the opposite, so slowly add the meringue into the almond mixture. You should incorporate it with care to avoid to lose all the air in the meringue, and once it’s mixed in you should do some circular movements with the spatula against the walls of the bowl. After 3 or 4 circular movements you will cut through the center of the bowl. And repeat this until you have added all the meringue and the consistency is reached. Usually I add the meringue in 3 steps;
10. Consistency: the consistency of a macaron should be like pouring lava. I found some online posts that do the consistency check by drawing an eight number with the spatula over the batter. The figure should keep there for some seconds and slowly disappear;
11. Once you’ve reached the desired consistency, you need to transfer the batter to a piping bag with a medium sized round piping tip. You should pipe 3.5/4 cm diameter circles and try to make them similar in size. If for some reason the batter ended up too thick you need to try to smooth the batter as much as you can but you will probably end up with bumpy or deformed macarons. If the batter is too runny, I recommend piping the macarons smaller than you would normally do (2.5cm or so) because they will expand a bit until they dry;
12. Leave the macaron shells to dry in the pans before putting them in the oven, the time to dry is between 20 and 30 mins (the more the better). And you will know when they are dry enough when you touch them and they are not sticky anymore;
13. Bake the macarons for 14 mins at 160 ºC (325F), but check sometime in the middle to avoid them burning the tops. They will develop the characteristic feet, but at the beginning the feet won’t be strong enough. A test to know when the feet are strong is touching the top of the shells with one finger and trying to move the shells carefully, if the top part moves by itself (like it was not properly attached to the feet), they are not ready yet. The top part of the shell should not move when the macaron is ready.
14. Once macarons are ready, take them out of the oven and wait for them to cool down before removing from the pan. You can store the shells in an airtight container for 1 week or even freeze them for 2 to 3 months.

Macarons Assembly

1. Once the ganache is completely cold and whipped and macarons shells cooled down, you can assembly the macarons;
2. Since macarons shells will not always be exactly the same size, before filling try to pair shells of similar sizes;
3. Take one of the pairs and pipe ganache in the center of one shell, try to avoid the ganache reaching the border of the shell because the filling will expand when the shells are combined;
4. Cover with the top shell and press softly to expand the ganache. Voilà! your first macaron is ready! Now continue with the other 848503….