Licorice Mascarpone Cream Macarons

Seriously, I think if I was to present these macarons back home in Malaysia, people might not eat this. Black is generally not a good colour for luck, furthermore, blackfood is just so weird. We do have black sesame cookies, but black macarons with licorice are completely different story.

I thought of this for my Mac Attack Entry for April. The theme is April Holiday, I thought about april fool. It was one of my favourite day when I was little, because I was able to fool my classmates. So making a black macarons is kinda like a joke, at least in my cultural context. I could simply imagine the face of my parents if I took these out of the oven!



FOR THE MACARON SHELL
1 room temperatured egg white(39-40g)
50g icing sugar
30g ground almond
30g castor sugar
1/2 teaspoon black powder food colouring
1/4 teaspoon metalic white food colouring


Method:
1. Put ground almond, food colouring and icing sugar in a food processor or a small blender. Blend them finely.

2. Sift the blended mixture and set aside

3. With an electric beater, Beat the egg white, start from low speed and increase slowly to maximum speed. Beat until frothy (you will see lots of fine bubbles)

4. Now it's the time to add in the castor sugar, add half of the sugar, continue to beat in maximum speed for around 2 minutes, add in the other half, continue until you get very stiff peak.

5. Mix the dry ingredients into the egg whites. This process is called Macaronage. Start folding with a rubber spatula. Continue to mix until you obtain a smooth lava flow batter.

6. When you get smooth shiny mixture, stop folding, lift the mixture with spatula, if the mixture falls back slowly in the bowl means you're good to go. You could also check if the lines formed from the lifted mixture, they should slowly disappear in within 30 seconds. At this stage you're good to go. Do not over fold, it will be too liquid and becoming very hard to pipe.
if you're unsure, you could refer to my basic macaron recipe as a guide HERE

7. Pipe the macaron on a baking sheet over baking tray. Hit the bottom of the baking tray with your hand to flatted out the macarons slightly.

8. Sift metallic food colouring powder over the shells.


9. Let your macarons sit for about 30minutes. This will depend on the humidity in your house and the day. Try touching the macaron softly, after 30mins. it should not stick to your hand.

10. Heat your oven to 150 C on the (heating on the top only). When the oven is ready, put your macaron at the very bottom shelf. Bake for 12 minutes, check them in the mid time of 6 minutes, the feets should already start forming. Turn the baking tray to the opposite direction to allow even baking. When the 6 mins is up, change the heating setting of your oven to Bottom only. This will help cooking the macaron and rise the feet more. Bake for another 6 minutes. You can test if the macaron is cook, touch softly on the shell and when the macaron doesn't slide on the feet, it's cooked. if it's not add another 1 mins each time and check.

(This is the method i found the best that works for me after few trial and error. I baked with heating the oven top and bottom and i had crack macarons. Having said that, every oven is slightly different than another, so please adjust accordingly)



11. Let the macaron cool down before removing them. You could wet your working area and slide the baking sheet on it to speed up the cooling process, but do not let it sit there too long, if not the macarons will become soggy. Other wise you can leave them cool at room temperature and remove them.



For the Licorice Mascarpone Cream Filling
I found that the cream has a better taste of licorice the next day. If you like you could prepare the cream a day before you bake the macaron shells.

Ingredients

1 egg yolk
15g castor sugar
125g mascarpone
2 rolls licorice candy (around 50g)


Methods

1. Cut the licorice candies in small pieces. about 5mm.

Licorice Candies

2. In a small mixing bowl, add egg yolk and sugar. Whisk until pale with a hand whisk.

2. Add in half of the mascarpone into the mixing bowl, whisk until it's well mixed, then add in another half, whisk again until you get a smooth cream.

3. Add in the licorice candies, and mix lightly.

4. Pipe the macarons.

5. After finish piping all the macarons, pop them in an air tight container. Leave them in refrigerator overnight. You could keep the macarons up to 48 hours in the frige. if not consumed, freeze them up. Because after 48 hours they will lose the texture.


7. Take them out of the fridge 20 mins prior eating.Enjoy!