Pink Macarons

One of my closest friends at work welcomed her beautiful baby girl into the world last year. We had a baby shower for her at the office for which we all brought eats and given my slight penchant for sugar, I volunteered myself for sweet treats.

Having recently completed my first successful batch of macarons, following a myriad of failed attempts, I felt that fate was on my side and macarons would be perfect. To me macarons have always been something special and I decided would make the perfect treat for a special occasion  The plan: pink macarons. Although history and statistics weren't on my side, I went ahead anyway. And it paid off!

My (so far) fail proof method is from the Australian Women's Weekly cookies. Here it is.

Macarons with White Chocolate Ganache Filling
Macarons
3 egg whites
2 tbsp caster sugar
200g icing sugar
120g almond flour
2tbsp icing sugar extra
Food colouring

1. Start off making the white chocolate ganache
2. Preheat oven to 150⁰C or 130⁰C fan-forced.
3. Grease oven trays and line with baking paper. To get nicely sized macarons to sandwich together, draw circles on the baking paper as a guide.
4. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Add sugar and food colouring, beat until sugar dissolves.
5. Fold in sifted icing sugar and almond flour in two batches. Your almond flour should reduce in volume after sifting.
6. Spoon mixture into a large piping bag fitted with a plain tube. Pipe round about 2cm apart onto baking paper. Tap trays to allow macarons to spread slightly and bring any bubbles to the surface.
7. Dust with sifted icing sugar and stand for 15 minutes.
8. Bake macarons for about 20 minutes. Allow to stand for 5 minutes. Transfer to wire rack to cool.
9. Sandwich macaron shells together with  ganache.

White Chocolate Ganache

100g white chocolate chopped coarsely

2 tbsp thickened cream

Stir chocolate and cream in a double boiler until smooth. Cover and refrigerate until mixture is spreadable.