Salted Caramel macarons - a tricky centre, but well worth it.

So - after the strawberry mcaron beginning, I wanted to try something a little more advanced. Making your own caramel and making macarons is a bit of a double challenge, but it was great fun and the final macs looked awesome and were a hit with friends and family.

A big thanks to ladymacaron20ten for her salted caramel inspiration!

Here's how to make them:

Before you make your shells, make the salted caramel filling. You can even do this a day before.
Here's what you'll need:
125g Fresh Cream
175g Caster Sugar
5g Sea Salt (I used a grinder) 175g Unsalted Butter (chopped into small cubes)

To make your caramel, melt the sugar in a small pan over low heat until it caramelises. don't do what I did and poke it around with a spoon. If it is starting to crystallize, push the crystals back in with a silicone pastry brush dipped in water.
Heat up your cream in a different saucepan until it boils then slowly pour it into the melted sugar. It may spit and bubble if you put it in too quickly. Blend it all together with a whisk and let the caramel cool down. When it drops to 45 degrees celsius add your butter and whisk it until it is well combined and you can't see any more yellow lumps or streaks.
Pour it into a shallow tray (ideally stainless steel), seal it with cling wrap, to stop skin from forming, then stick it in the fridge.
When it is set, take it out of the fridge, bring it back to room temperature, sprinkle the salt all over it then hand whisk it again until the colour changes and it becomes nice and glossy.
Now pit this into your piping bag and set aside until later 

Making your shells:

This is made up of two parts - making the Tant Pour Tant (blended almond meal and icing sugar - also known as TPT) and making the meringue. I use the Italian Meringue (IM) method as it is more forgiving of any rookie errors.

Making the TPT

• 150g almond meal - try to buy this in bulk - i.e up to 1kg for better value, the small 1-200g bags end up working out at about $30-$40 per kilo, whereas a kilo can be found for $15-20. This can make about 200 complete macarons!
• 150g icing sugar - I find its good to pulse the two in a food processor or flour mill to make a nice fine powder
• approx 3 large (free range) eggs to yield 110g egg white . Use 55g for the TPT and 55 for the meringue

Making the IM

• 150g caster sugar you can probably use regular sugar, but I find this melts better in the pan
• 
37g water - I use a syringe or the digital scales to measure this (1ml=1g), if you're planning to use colourings and you don't have gel colourings, subtract a few ml of the water and replace it with the liquid colouring - 1-2ml/g for light colouring, 5-6g for a deep colour
• 55g egg whites. There is plenty of debate about using old egg whites aged 12-24 hours in a bowl on the kitchen bench or even longer in a container in the fridge. I have experimented with both, you can still make great macarons with fresh egg whites, but the aged egg whites do create better "feet". You can "fake" age the eggs by adding 1g of powdered egg white

1 - Make your TPT

Mix the Tant Pour Tant (TPT) with the fresh egg white in a bowl with a spatula until it forms a thick paste, cover with cling wrap and set aside. You can add extra food colouring here if you're going for  a really intense colour as colours can tend to fade on baking.

2 - Make the Italian Meringue

Pour your (aged) egg whites into a stand mixer bowl (make sure it is very clean) and insert the whisk attachment.

Bring the caster sugar, water and food colouring to the boil in a small saucepan. I added a teaspoon of espresso coffee here to create a nice light brown colour. While this is heating up, get your thermometer into the pan and keep an eye on the temperature.
When the sugar syrup reaches 115°C start whisking your aged egg whites at high speed into soft peaks. As soon as the syrup reaches 118°C slowly pour the syrup into the beaten egg whites in a thin stream. Don't let it hit the whisk or you'll end up with a load of spun sugar. Continue whisking the IM in the stand mixer until it reaches a temperature between 50-55°C.

Nice peaks

3 - Bringing the two together - a fragile union ;)

With a spatula, fold roughly one-third of the IM into the paste you made earlier. This process is known as "Macaronnage", where you "sacrifice this third of the IM and knock out some of the air in the batter. Don't be shy at this point - you can be pretty rough here.

Gently fold in the remaining IM into the TPT and combine until you have the right texture (it should be glossy and flow like lava). Try not to over-mix the batter at this point or it will get too runny and your shells could crack in the oven.

4 - Fill 'er up

Pegs and bag clips are your friend

Get a friend to help or use a tall vase to fill a piping bag fitted with a size 11 round nozzle or a 10m hole, with the macaron batter and place some baking paper over a baking sheet. Slide your macaron template underneath and either secure the baking paper by placing four small dabs of macaron mix underneath the parchment paper in each corner or use small magnets or weights.

Following your template, pipe out 3.5 - 4cm diameter circles onto the baking paper, give it a good whack from underneath to remove air bubbles and leave to dry for about 15-20 minutes to form a crust and are dry to touch. I tried to run before I could walk and tried to get decorative with some drinking chocolate powder and create stripes and patterns. This caused the othrwise perfect shells to crack a little upon baking - less is more when it comes to decorating before baking.

5 - now we're cooking!

Cook each tray for 10-15 mins at 150°C (fan forced oven) - you'll soon get a feel for your oven and will know when to pull them out. To release steam, leave the oven door open slightly. I use the kitchen timer to go off every 5 mins and rotate the tray each time.

Once they are cooked, slide the baking paper onto a damp work surface - this helps you remove them from the baking sheet then leave them to cool on a wire rack.

6 - playing matchmaker and filling them up

Arrange them on the rack and pair like sizes together. Using the piping back and a smaller nozzle, pipe a decent sized blob of your ganache onto the shell, put it's other half on top and twist slightly so that the ganache flows out towards the edge. When you pipe the ganache onto the shell always leave a little clearance around the edge.

7 - sample then store

Try out one of your creations as a reward - go on - you've earned it over the past few hours. Then store your completed macarons in the fridge at least overnight prior to eating so that the humidity helps the ganache to soak into the shell and allow the flavours to develop. I find egg cartons are great for storage and transport.

8 - enjoy the little buggers

Take some photos, instagram them, let people know that you conquered the fickle macaron. Then share them with friends and family and watch the enjoyment. Repeat as often as required.

The go faster stripes didn't quite work

All up they were awesome - the shells turned out well as this time I had a piping bag, which also came in very handy for filling the shells
My advice would be to fork out for Fleur de Sel. Regular rock salt in a grinder worked well, but didnt have that refined taste that Fleur de Sel has. If you're going to go to all the trouble of making salted caramel macs, then you don't want it ruined by overpowering the salt.

I had quite a bit of  salted caramel remaining, which I used in the next batch - two tone choc overload macarons. you could also swirl it through some vanilla ice cream for a real treat.

If you've never tried salted caramel before - I'd definitely recommend this!

LVB