I think I struck gold when I heard S say “oh how I miss black Toblerone…”. We were talking about how the Toblerone fairy had been visiting work and I was also wondering what macaron flavour I should try next (I haven’t repeated once since I started making them at the start of 2012. There’s always a slight variation.)

Hmm dark chocolate laced with crushed nuts, classic! Easy too as all I need to make for the filling is to melt the chocolate bar with the cream.

I’ve used a subtle chocolate flavour shell to let the filling stand out. I think it screams Toblerone, I wonder what my colleagues will think?

Macarons shell ingredients
150 g icing sugar
140 g almond meal
10g valrhona cocoa powder
110 g egg whites, split into 2 bowls of 55g each
150 g caster sugar
38 ml water
1 g meringue powder

Making macarons shells

Sift the almond meal, icing sugar and cocoa powder, set aside in a large wide bowl.

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. Leave it to heat up and don’t stir it.

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 speed until it becomes frothy.

Once the sugar syrup has reached 118°C (soft ball stage), take the saucepan off the heat, keep the mixer speed on 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 second lot of egg whites to the almond meal mix, then add the meringue and use a large spatula to thoroughly combine it. Continue mixing the mixture to soften the meringue. Don’t be afraid to slap the mixture down.To achieve “macaronnage”, I mixed the batter about 25 times. Don’t over do this.

Scoop half into a piping bag fitted with a #12 Wilton tip, and pipe. To get even rounds, I hold the piping bag above the baking sheet, with the tip at a 45 degree angle. I squeeze the mixture in the centre of my rounds and as it is close to filling my circle, I stop squeezing and flick the tip from three o’clock to 6 o’clock. This ensures a smooth top.

You can sift some cocoa powder on the tops too if you wish.

Allow 30 minutes for a skin to be formed.

Fan-bake them at 125°C, for 20 minutes. After a few minutes in the oven, I could see them rising nicely.

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 these with a dark Toblerone ganache.

Filling Ingredients:
150g Dark Toblerone
150ml cream

Instructions:
Break up Toblerone into small chunks. Bring cream up to a boil in a pan, and pour over the chocolate. Let it sit for a minute before stirring. Let it cool and thicken in the fridge.

Spread a teaspoon of ganache on half of your shells and top them with the remaining half of your shells.

The filled macarons need to be kept in the fridge for 24 hours for the filling to flavour the shells, so don’t eat it yet! These freeze well (up to 3 months).