Matcha Green Tea Macarons & Double Sided Macaroon Mat

I love making macarons. If I'm honest, I like making them more than I like eating them (though they are yummy too !) Some people still call these macaroons - but macaroons are very different (though just as tasty) and made from dessicated coconut.

I adore the pretty colours and being able to make them all so uniform and perfect in size and shape. It's so satisfying when things go right to pull two trays of perfect macarons from the oven. Baking on our Revolutionary Double Sided Macaron Mat means you can make every macaron identical in size.

Sometimes it may take you a few attempts to get the hang of baking macarons. The key is making sure that the batter (macaronage) is neither under or over mixed.

You'll find my Youtube video tutorial on making Macarons here.

Recipe (makes 75 x 2" dia shells = 37 macarons)

180g ground almonds

200g icing sugar / powdered sugar

2 tsp Matcha green tea powder

180g egg whites (split into two batches)

200g caster sugar

Preheat your oven to 150deg C fan.

Grind the ground almonds and icing sugar together until very very fine.

Add these to a large bowl with the matcha powder and 90g of egg whites. Mix to form a thick, smooth paste.

Put the caster sugar in a pan with 80ml of water and boil to 118deg C without stirring. When temperature hits 110 deg C, start whisking the egg whites to firm peak.

Slowly pour the sugar syrup into the egg whites, whipping constantly. Continue to whip until thick and shiny and cooled - but a little warm.

Fold the whipped egg whites / sugar mix into the paste making sure not to leave any streaky traces of paste mix of white meringue. It's ready when a ribbon trail of the macaronage starts to disappear into the rest of the mix within about 20 seconds.

Pipe on to your double sided macaron mat to within about 5mm of the ring of each cell. Please refer to my video tutorial in the link above if you need to see how to do this. The macaronage will relax to fill each cell.

Rap the tray on the worktop a couple of times to help release air bubbles.

Put trays in the oven and bake for 5 mins with the door open. Shut the door and bake for a further 20mins.

Allow to cool thoroughly before removing from the mats.

Fill with white chocolate ganache or vanilla buttercream.

To make white chocolate ganache, use 3 : 1 ratio of melted white chocolate and scalded double cream. Allow to cool until thickened but pipe-able or spreadable.

Here is Oliver in the office with Spencer bear and a macaron. 

Spencer is the bear from nursery, and Oliver was lucky enough to be chosen to bring Spencer home and look after him for the weekend.

Oliver was very proud to bring Spencer home. Daddy and Oliver showed Spencer how to light our stove and make the house lovely and cosy.

Unfortunately Spencer had a little accident and got sopping wet when Oliver dropped him in a great big puddle. He had to spend a few hours on the fire guard drying out whilst Oliver and I took the motorbike (powered by feet) that he got for his birthday out for a ride.....

As always, we stopped off to see Bess the dog just down the road. She's such a sweetie. Even she seemed puzzled by why Oliver was still partially dressed as a pirate !

Typically - EVERY puddle was for splashing in. This kid was SOAKED more than Spencer by the time he got home....