Valentine's Day Special - Chocolate ganache Macaroons

I was going through my daughter's bible reading today and came across Proverbs 14:30.

It reads "A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones."

God really has a way of putting things into perspective.

What matters to the heart will manifest in the flesh.  If your heart isn't at peace, neither will your body be.  Just think of people you know who are unhappy and carry unforgiveness in their hearts and many a times, they fall sick as a result it.  Envy and jealousy corrupt not just our hearts, but will wreak our bodies as well - rots the bones ... literally.

Envy, discontentment, jealousy should be kicked out of the door!  Let's keep it real here.  We will get nowhere and do no-good to ourselves by harping on things that will eventually kill us!  So which "tent" do you belong?  The content or discontent.  I'd rather be happy with little than worry with much.

Just keeping it simply - for Valentine's Day.  What matters to the heart, matters to the body!

And keeping it simple, I have embarked into making the humble basic macaroons to amuse my kids just a couple of weeks ago.

The recipe I tried was simple, very sweet (be warned) but it took some effort and time because of the sifting.  So you have to set aside some time to sift the ingredients.  I made a chocolate ganache for the filling, but you can always just put raspberry jam if you want it simple.

Here's what you need.  But let's start with the chocolate ganache.

Chocolate ganache


Ingredients
- 8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate (you can use bittersweet chocolate as well)
- 1 cup of heavy cream (whipping cream)

Method
- Break the chocolate into pieces and place them into a metal bowl
- Heat cream in a separate pan to a boil
- Pour cream over chocolate
- Whisk until smooth
- Allow it to cool then whisk until light and fluffy




Macaroons


Ingredients
- 3/4 cup of confectioners' sugar
- 3/4 cup of ground almond
- 2 large egg whites at room temperature
- 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar
- 2 tablespoons of fine sugar

Method
- Using a food processor, pulse the confectioners' sugar and ground almond together.
- This is the tedious part - sift mixture twice

- Set oven at 190 degrees Celsius
- Whisk egg white with a egg beater until it turns foamy.

- Add cream of tartar and continue beating until soft peaks are formed
- Add fine sugar and beat at high speed until stiff shiny peaks are formed
- Sift (again) sugar and almond mixture into the whisked egg - fold

- Transfer mixture into a pastry bag and pipe it onto a baking sheet forming flat round cookie shaped macaroons.

- Let it sit for 15 minutes before putting into oven
- Bake for 10 to 15 minutes until lightly brown
- Remove from oven and let it sit for 10 minutes.  They flatten out slightly as you can see.
- Macaroons should be firm and crisp

- Once cooled, spread the chocolate ganache between to macaroons like a filling in a sandwich.

Something sweet for the soul this Valentine's Day!  Till the next post, God bless!