In thinking about new flavours for macarons, I find myself drawn to desserts that we like and thinking whether there can be a macaron version. A while ago I made a coffee macaron and on reflection I thought it reminded me of Tiramisu, an all-time favourite dessert in our household. Today I decided to make macarons based on our Tiramisu recipe. I made these with chocolate shells paired with a rum chocolate ganache and a coffee jelly. J is not allowed to go near the coffee so I made some with just the chocolate ganache, without the strong coffee jelly.

Macaron shells
150 g almond meal
140 g icing sugar
10g valrhona cocoa powder
58 g egg whites (about 1.5 egg)
1 g meringue powder
150 g caster sugar
38 g water
2-3 drops of each of brown coloring gels
58 g egg whites extra

Put the first lot of egg whites into your stand mixer.
Clip the sugar thermometer according to manufacturer’s instructions to a milk saucepan. Put the water and caster sugar in and dissolve the sugar over a low heat. Some recipes say you should stir this gently – I’ve found that so long as I didn’t splash the sugar around, I won’t even have to stir. Use a clean pastry brush to brush down the side of the saucepan to avoid any crystallization if the liquid splashes up. Increase the heat and bring to the boil.
To make coffee-coloured shells, I added brown gel colourings to my Italian meringue. The amount depends on the strength of your gel, what depth of colour you desire and how it mixes with other ingredients. Practice is the only way to test it out. I scrapped 2-3 tiny balls out using a tooth pick.

Cook the sugar syrup until it reaches 70°C. You should monitor your sugar thermometer, and as it reaches this temperature, add the meringue powder to the egg whites and whisk in medium until it becomes frothy.

Once the sugar syrup has reached 118°C (soft ball stage), take the saucepan off the heat, decrease the mixer speed to medium and slowly trickle the sugar syrup in, down the side of the bowl. (Be warned not to get the syrup onto the whisk as you will then have spun sugar.) Increase speed to high and whisk until the bowl is warm to touch, about 8 minutes.

Add the extra egg white to the almond meal mix, then add the meringue and use a large spatula to thoroughly combine it.

Continue combining the mixture to soften the meringue. To achieve “macaronnage”, I mixed the batter about 18 times.

Wait 30 minutes for the skin to form.

I fan-baked them at 125°C, for 18 minutes (longer than normal as cocoa ones need more time to cook).

Once out of the oven, the macarons were left for 2 minutes on its trays before I checked them. They peeled off the baking paper quite easily. I then slid the whole sheet off the baking sheet onto my cool marble counter top. This causes a thermal shock and will make it even easier to peel off.

I paired this with a rum chocolate ganache, and the recipe follows:

120g chocolate, chopped
100ml cream
1 tbsp rum

Melt cream in a pot and pour over the chopped chocolate. Let it sit for 2 minutes until the chocolate melts. Mix the rum in till the ganache is smooth. Cool in the fridge for 60 minutes until firm for piping.

Coffee jelly
3 heaped tsp Moccona coffee granules
4 tbsp sugar
100ml hot water
1.5 gelatine sheets

Let the sheet bloom in a bowl of 250ml cold water for a a few minutes.

Dissolve the sugar and coffee granules in the hot water.

Squeeze the water from the bloomed gelatine sheet and add the sheet into the coffee mix, stir to completely dissolve the sheet. Cool in fridge to set.

This recipe makes plenty, so save some in an airtight box for later!

In the meantime, I used a small icing spatula to lift off thin sections of the coffee jelly. I placed these on one pair of the domes and the chocolate ganache onto the other pair of the domes.

These need to be kept in the fridge for 24 hours for the ganache to flavour the shells, so don’t eat it yet! These can keep in the freezer for up to 3 months – just wrap a few of them (4 or 6) with cling film wraps and place them in a airtight box. Bring them out an hour before serving to allow them to return to room temperature. The moisture will cling to the cling film and not your macarons.

The one in the left is the chocolate flavour.

Where as the one on the right has the coffee jelly layer. My tasters said they were yum! Although the coffee jelly is quite strong when tried on its own, it achieves a striking balance when paired with the rich ganache and sweet shell. Hm-mmm!