Here Emilie Thyebaut, Founder of France Just For You, shares her favorite recipe for making Chocolate Macarons! These normally turn out better if you're baking them on a dry day rather than on a rainy day.

Chocolate french macarons

Homemade chocolate French macarons (Photo©: France Just For You)

 

Ingredients

For about 20-25 macarons

Biscuit:

  • 3 egg whites
  • 200g powered sugar
  • 125g almond powder (grounded very thin)
  • 30g sugar
  • 15g bitter cacao (French brand Van Houten)
  • 20 drops of red food coloring

Ganache filling:

  • 120g baking chocolate
  • 80g butter
  • 30g thick crème fraiche



How to make macaron biscuits: 

  1. Mix the bitter cacao, powered sugar, and almond powder together until you have a very fine powder.

     
  2. Whip up the egg whites (very hard) and the fine caster sugar, and add the food coloring at the end so that it mixes with the rest.

     
  3. Sieve the powder from  step 1 and add it to the whipped egg whites from step 2.

     
  4. With a piping bag, squeeze small domes of the mixture, about 3cm in size, onto silicone baking paper. When you make them, the tip of the pastry bag must touch the plate.

     
  5. Let it rest for about 30 minutes (very important: during wet weather, have them rest near a warm radiator).

     
  6. Cook them in the oven for 12 to 13 minutes at 175°C. The biscuits must unstick from the paper easily.

 

Making French chocolate macarons

Guillaume and Jeanne sticking the biscuits together with the chocolate ganache (Photo©: France Just For You)

 

HOW TO MAKE MACARON GANACHE:

  1. Melt the chocolate, butter and crème on a low heat.

     
  2. Let it cool in the fridge until it’s hard.

     
  3. When the biscuits are cool, stick two of them together with some ganache cream in the middle.

     

 Et voilà! You should be left with 20-25 perfectly delicious chocolate French macarons! 

Keep the macarons in a cool, dry place and you can quick-freeze them… if you don't eat them all in one go!

TIP: you will know that the macaron biscuit is well-cooked and that you made a nice paste when you see the ring forming around the edge of the biscuit while they cook. This is called the “collerette” in French. If you're buying macarons, make sure that they have the collarette. This is how you know that they won’t stick to your teeth and that they've been cooked well. But don't worry if you don't get it right the first time; this is the most difficult part of making macarons!

 

Jeanne and Pauline enjoying French chocolate macarons

Jeanne and Pauline enjoying their homemade French macarons! (Photo©: France Just For You)

France Just For You

Experts in self-drive tours in France

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Grace from the US
A Fabulous Honeymoon ! We found France Just For You (FJFY) while doing a google search of places to honeymoon. After reaching out to Laura and Emilie we were immediately met with professionalism and enthusiasm. This trip was flawless in every way possible, any question we had about traveling to a foreign country had been thought of and answered by …
Maureen
If I had to sum up our trip in one word it would just have to be WOW! But of course it is impossible to describe the trip of a lifetime in just one word. The detail and care that Emilie put into planning our trip was AMAZING. Every place we stayed, every outing she planned, every person that she put us in contact was wonderful. My husband and I …
Elle
Laura and Emilie planned such a professional, authentic and fantastic trip that it has become one of my favorite vacations! Excursions, accommodations, and suggested activities were flawless -- such that the only difficult decision for us was what to select from scrumptious French cuisine. I was hesitant at first to trust an unknown online trip …
Carol & Mike
We have recently returned from our second trip to France arranged by Emilie and Guillaume. The itinerary was created by Emilie to include our particular interests and everything ran smoothly from start to finish. We look forward to exploring another part of France in the future arranged by France Just For You.
Bob
France just for you was fantastic. We provided a list of places we like to see, they customized our trips with great suggestions. They Provided Car, places to stay, a 2 book itinerary with wonderful suggestions, great Bed and Breakfast and small hotel (very romantic) , assistance when ever we accidentally called their number. We requested guides at …
Ed
This is the third year in a row that we have traveled to France, as part of a two country vacation. Because of our positive experiences with Emilie's help in the past, and our desire to be relatively independent, we chose to have her craft our French trip again this year. In a word, she is incredible! We have such a high level of confidence in her …