…making macarons. these chocolate and hazelnut macarons with salted caramel were a bit of a triumph for me. not very pretty and not very dainty, but i have to say that i am pretty proud of my first attempt. i intended to make an espresso ganache, but it didn’t come together for me and i only had milk chocolate, which was not really what i wanted. so, in went the leftover walnut caramel. i have to admit i have never made macarons before and they have been on my to-do list for the entire summer. melly over at one messy kitchen is hosting this months shf event and when i discovered that it would be meringue i was more than a little excited.
after deciding on a fairly simple flavor combo, i got to work. for the recipe i turned to helen (as i so often do) and i simply subbed ingredients. i did leave them in the oven a few minutes longer, as they were a bit larger than i would have like due to my inexperienced piping skills.
i was nervous that the macarons wouldn’t develop the coveted foot that i hear about so often…but they did! i squealed a little when i pulled them from the oven. this caused sean to wander into the kitchen to see what the ruckus was about..which may have been a mistake on his part since he had to listen to me chatter away about the ‘foot’ of the macaron for a lot longer than he probably would have liked. after he got a taste, i think he felt it was well worth it. he said they were like little caramel hamburgers. the shells were crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside and even though my espresso ganache failed, the walnut caramel added a bit of saltiness which did not disappoint.