Caramel centered chocolate macarons...

To start these, make your caramel first:

Melt 100g castor sugar until golden

Add 66g cream (carefully)

Then add 100g butter

Combine until glossy, then put in fridge until ready to use

When ready to pipe, whisk with electric beaters until pale and creamy (see images below)

Caramel before whipping

Caramel after whipping

 Next, make a chocolate ganache (100g chocolate, 100g cream), and allow to cool in the fridge.

For the chocolate macaron shells, use the generic macaron recipe but replace 30g of icing sugar with 30g of cocoa powder.

Once cooled, pipe the whipped caramel in the centre of each macaron.

Then pipe around the caramel with the chocolate ganache (be careful not to use too much or it will spill over the edges)

And the finished product:

Cherry Ripe Macarons and Whipped Caramel Macarons

Whipped Caramel Macaron

An idea came to me one night as I was stuck in traffic, driving home from work. Of course, dinner didn't get cooked till very late that night - I had to try my idea and see if it worked!

Sometimes I find ganaches a bit heavy and rich, but I'm not a fan of butter cream (cringe). So I wondered if I could make a whipped caramel ganache - and it worked! Make a caramel ganache and allow it to cool, then whisk it in an electric mixer for ~10 mins until pale and fluffy. Looks and smells amazing, but wait till you taste it!

Whipped Caramel Ganache:

125mL cup cream 

3/4 cup caster sugar

30mL water 

250 g white chocolate 

Heat the caster sugar and water in a saucepan and continue to boil until it is a light brown colour. Do not stir (swirl, brush down sides of pan with a wet pastry brush).

Remove from heat and VERY carefully (I burnt my hand!) add the cream to the toffee while whisking. The mixture will bubble and release hot steam. It might help to warm the cream up a bit before adding. This is now a caramel.

Place the white chocolate, chopped, into a bowl. Pour the caramel over the chocolate and allow to sit for a few minutes (to allow the chocolate to melt). Whisk together until well combined, and put aside to cool.

Once cooled, put into mixer bowl and whisk on high until pale and light (looks like a butter cream).