Chocolate macarons

These chocolate macarons are quite simple to make once you have mastered the basic recipe. The difference from the basic recipe is only in the addition of the cocoa powder. The powder gives the macaron shell additional taste of chocolate and a nice color. Because of the cocoa powder the mixture is slightly more wet, which means that the shells must bake in the oven a little longer then the shells without cocoa powder.
The filling is totally up to you, but I like to fill them with chocolate ganache, to make them extra chocolaty. Other flavors like raspberry, orange and strawberry go really well with chocolate and you can add the extracts of these fruits to the ganache to make it stand out.

Chocolate macarons

(Makes about 40 macarons)

Time:

Preparation: 30min

Resting: 30min

Baking: 14-17min

Cooling: 20min

For the shells:

• 95g room temperature egg whites
• 125g granulated white sugar
•  40g water
• 125g almond flour or finely ground almonds
• 125g icing sugar
• 25g cocoa powder

For the ganache:

• 150g heavy cream
• 150g dark chocolate

The preparation is the same as in the Basic recipe macarons. The cacao is sifted with the icing sugar and almonds.

 They also make for a really nice gift.