Chocolate Flavored French Macaron Recipe

Chocolate Flavored French Macaron with Cocoa Swiss Buttercream Recipe

To make chocolate flavored French macarons, simply add a small amount of brown food coloring and chocolate extract (and/or cocoa powder) to the macaron mix, add water, whip as instructed, pipe and bake per instruction on the box.

Ingredients:
Directions:
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  • Prepare three baking trays lined with Silicon Mat (we don’t recommend parchment paper).
  • Set oven to 280 ºF for convection bake settings or to 300 ºF for conventional bake.
  • Add cocoa powder and 2 oz warm water (122 ºF) to Macaron mix.  Mix at low speed for 1 minute, then medium speed for 3 minutes.  If using electric hand mixer, whip the mixture in a deep bowl for 3.5 minutes using the slowest settings.
  • Place a round pastry tip in a disposable pastry bag, cut the tip. Place it in a tall plastic jar or a glass, and fold over the edge. Pour batter into the pastry bag.
  • Using guides on your silicon mat, pipe the batter in 1 – 1.25 inch circles. Tap each tray on a hard surface a few times to remove any air bubbles and flatten cookie surface.  Cookies will expand to 1.75 inches when you tap the tray (they will fill the silicon mat guide when flattened).
  •  If oven is set to “bake”,  let cookies rest for at least 15 minutes or until the surface is dry to touch.  Bake for 15 minutes.
  • If using “convection bake” settings, there is no need to dry the batter as the hot air movement created by the convection fan dries the surface very quickly before batter starts to rise.  Bake for 20 minutes.
  • While shells are baking,  whip up the buttercream:
    • Add 2 oz hot water (160 ºF- same temp as when making tea or coffee) to the mix.
    • Whisk at high speed for 3-4 minutes until meringue is stiff.
    • Add brown food coloring, cocoa, and or chocolate flavoring (optional).
    • Gradually whip in 1.25 sticks of soft unsalted butter.  Avoid using cold butter.  Whip until the mixture is silky and smooth.
  • Remove trays from oven.  Let shells cool down completely before removing them from trays.
  • Garnish with buttercream and assemble.  Again, make sure shells are cool.

Flavoring note:  Some bakers prefer coloring the shells and simply flavor the buttercream only.  Feel free to experiment.  Chocolate and lavender or chocolate and mint are great combinations.  For instance chocolate shells with a mint flavored buttercream would make a great combination.

When adding dry content to the macaron mix (such as cocoa in this recipe), it is a good idea to remove the same amount of mix so the to total dry content remains the same.