Batch #17 - Raspberry Dark Chocolate Ganache & Lime-Lemon Macarons

Hot on the heels of the last batch of macarons, I made an even bigger batch to share with friends and family.  Time for more fun with food colouring splatters!  For this batch I again made the ever popular Lime-Lemon, and at Little One's request made Raspberry ones, this time using a dark chocolate ganache.

Maybe because we went and watched Breaking Dawn the night before (!?), but I subconsciously decided to use red rather pink colouring for the raspberry dark chocolate shells.  The effect was a little Twilight x Dexter while I was waiting for them to dry.....

Fortunately they didn't look too bad post-assembly!

I really quite liked the dark chocolate ganache matched with the raspberry jam.  I still haven't mastered the art of ganache making, and I'm much more comfortable using a straight chocolate and cream ganache, and adding a fruit flavour via the use of a jam or coulis, rather than infusing the chocolate with the fruit (puree) itself.

The most important thing I learnt from this batch was that I COULD BAKE 2 TRAYS AT THE SAME TIME!!!  I usually make 60-80 macarons per batch, which equates to 120-160 shells, or roughly 7-8 trays of shells.  I bake these one tray at a time for around 15 minutes each, so even though it's not hard work, it's quite tedious and takes me about 2 hours in total just to do the baking.  I decided to try a few tips from Pierre Herme's book and worked out a routine of swapping the trays around so that the shells would achieve the feet, and still bake reasonably evenly.  Yes, I was happy dancing round the kitchen at the thought of being able to half the time I spend baking!  And yes, I could spend more time playing with food-styling and taking photos of the fruits of my labour!

Lessons Learned -

• Opening the door briefly during baking can let off steam from the oven and help reduce the appearance of those horrible "abalone" feet that appear when the shells rise and collapse too quickly due to excess heat.