French Pink Macaroons

Total Time: 1 hr Preparation Time: 20 mins Cook Time: 40 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 18
• 3 egg whites
• 2 tablespoons caster sugar (aussie tablespoon is 4 teaspoons)
• pink food coloring, a few drops
• 1 1/4 cups icing sugar (do not use icing sugar mixture)
• 1 cup almond meal (ground almonds)
• 2 tablespoons icing sugar, extra
• 100 g eating chocolate, chopped coarsely
• 2 tablespoons thickened cream

Recipe

• 1 to make the chocolate ganache- stir the chocolate and the thickened cream in a saucepan over a low heat until smooth.
• 2 transfer the mixture to a small bowl. cover and refrigerate until the mixture is spreadable.
• 3 for the macaroon cookies- preheat oven to 150°c or 130°c if using a fan-forced oven. grease oven trays and line them with baking paper.
• 4 ensure mixing bowl is thoroughly clean. beat egg whites in a small bowl with an electric mixer until soft peaks form.
• 5 add the sugar and food colouring, beat until the sugar dissolves.
• 6 transfer the mixture to a large bowl.
• 7 fold in the sifted icing sugar and almond meal, in two batches.
• 8 spoon the mixture into large piping bag fitted with a 1.5cm plain tube.
• 9 pipe 36 x 4cm rounds, 2cm apart, onto the trays. (keep the circles as uniform as possible as this will make your macaroons look uniform and make pairing easier).
• 10 tap the trays on the bench top to allow macaroons to spread slightly. dust with sifted icing sugar and allow to stand for 15 minutes.
• 11 bake macaroons about 20 minutes. remove from oven and allow to stand 10 minutes on the trays before transferring to a wire rack to cool.
• 12 sandwich macaroons with the ganache.
• 13 dust with a little sifted icing sugar to serve.
• 14 makes 18.