Chocolate Macaroons

Weaknesses:

1. Barbecue potato chips. Ok…potato chips of any kind, but especially BBQ.

2. Surprise sample sales at Kate Spade. So many poor decisions made and wallets won.

3. Clueless on cable. I’m convinced that this movie is on tv at any given moment, and whenever I find it, I feel obligated to make sure Alicia Silverstone and Paul Rudd end up together. Teeeenderness, where is the teeeenderness. Sorry…

4. Tiny desserts. Enter macaroons.

Ever since afternoon tea at the Empress, I’ve been dreaming about the dessert tray. So many teeny desserts, including pistachio macaroons, lemon meringue tarts and little chocolate bowls of coffee cream goodness still haunt me. I’ve since been missing those lady-sized food bites, and decided my only option was to make more.

I made mine a little more festive with sprinkles and chocolate buttercream. Consider these your go-to mini-sized party macaroons. They’re technically mac-uh-rons (almond flour, not coconut), but since I’m uh-mair-ican, I call them all mac-uh-roons. You’re welcome francophiles.

And without further uh-do, the recipe!

Chocolate Macaroons from Macaroons

Yields about 32 1.5″ diameter macaroon halfs (16 sandwiches)

Ingredients

3/4 cup ground almonds

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

2 extra large egg whites

1/4 granulated sugar

Filling

Chocolate buttercream frosting from Birthday Cake

Directions 

Take two extra large eggs and separate the whites. Let the whites sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Combine ground almonds, powdered sugar and cocoa powder in the bowl of a food processor. Grind for 10-20 seconds to make sure ingredients are thoroughly mixed and processed. Sift mixture into a clean bowl.

Take your room temperature egg whites and put them in the bowl of a stand or hand mixer. Mix at high speed until frothy egg whites form and hold little peaks. Take your sugar and continue to mix, slowly adding the sugar to form a glossy meringue.

Next, take your meringue and slowly fold in dry ingredients, 1/3 at a time. Fold them into the egg whites using a spatula and once all are incorporated, keep folding until it forms a shiny batter. Put the batter in a pastry bag (or a plain ol sandwich bag will do) and pipe small circles onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Let the baking sheets sit at room temperature for 30 minutes  (if you want to add sprinkles, do so at this point) until the tops of your macaroons are hard to the touch. Then bake for 10-15 minutes, and cool for 5 minutes before peeling them from the parchment paper. Let them cool completely before filling with buttercream or other desired filling. Sandwich and devour!