Black Sesame Macarons with Dark Cocoa filling

Selam Everybody.... Mehaba from Turkey...

Macarons, is a french sweet meringue-based confection made with egg white, icing sugar, granulated sugar, almond powder or ground almond, and food colouring. The macaron is commonly filled with ganache, buttercream or jam filling sandwiched between two cookies. The name is derived from the Italian word macarone, maccarone or maccherone, the meringue.

Even basically these people fave just made with 4 ingredients plus food coloring (if using), now we can find many ideas of variety for this macarons. Like adding cocoa powder in it to make chocolate macarons. Or adding some Asian taste by adding matcha or pandan flavor in it. 
And if you are my regular reader, you should know that previously I made new favorite; coconut macarons. In case you missed my other macarons recipe, you can check at "Macarons" category list.

And part of my obsession to make macarons' variety as many as I can, today I made black sesame seed macarons. Some of you maybe already familiar with black sesame seed macarons, meanwhile some of you never heard about it and wondering how it make and taste.

Yup..me neither ^,^ I never tried black sesame macarons before. That is why I am so curious about it. When I search for black sesame macarons recipe on the net, I found some of them used 100% black sesame seed for their nut-free macarons while other using ratio for almond and black sesame powder. 

So for my black sesame macarons today I'll stick to my base recipe with a little modification adding black sesame powder. Oh, btw... I make my own black sesame powder by grinding some black sesame seeds in a spice grinder. Sift a few times to get a smooth powder. 

Bring back the coarse one to the grinder to process until you get smooth powder. But be careful not to work it too long otherwise you'll end up with oily and gritty powder. Next time I will post how to make black sesame seed powder in separated post, this time I didn't take picture of it.

But it would be easier if you can access black sesame powder ready in your hand ^,^


Do it a head:
This step for some people is an optional. Maybe since they already purchase "macarons baking mat" with ready circles on it. Or some people just accustomed bake macarons like hundred times (^,^) . 

But for me who want my macarons to have the precise size I always do this step. Draw some circle over white paper like picture below. The circle should have about 4 or 5 cm in diameter with about 2,5~3 cm space in between. Of course if you wanna your macarons bigger or smaller, draw in diameter as you want. You can keep this paper for later you bake another batch of macarons.

Before you start turn on your mixer, just put this paper under your baking paper like so. Just remember to slide off that paper before baking.

Now, prepare all your ingredients....
Make about 25~30 pair (Depending how big you pipe your macarons)

For macarons shells:

• 80 gr egg white- this time I use fresh egg white,room temperature.
• 60 gr caster sugar 
• 140 gr icing sugar
• 70 gr almond meal/ flour
• 40 gr black sesame powder, and more for sprinkle on top
• gel food color (optional), I use black few drops

After you ready with everything above, let's start to make Macarons shells:

Put almond flour/ meal, icing sugar and black sesame powder in food processor with sharp blade and process until powdery smooth. Scrape down and side the processor bowl few times until you get powdery smooth mixture. Then sieve twice or three times into a bowl, press with back of the spoon until you get fine mixture. Discard any coarse left on sieve. Set a side.

İn clean mixing glass/ metal bowl (do not use plastic bowl) whisk egg white just until foamy. 

Note:

It's important to keep your mixing bowl and utensil grease-free cause meringue very very very hate oil-even just a touch of it! Plastic bowl has risk with grease even after you clean them. I always avoid to use plastic mixing bowl.

After foamy like figure above, gradually beat in caster sugar one spoon at a time. Continuously whisk between each addition.

Continue to whisk until glossy and stiff peak. If you invert the bowl up side down, the egg white will against the gravitation (^,^)...it won't drop down.

Glossy and hard peak egg white

After you get stiff and glossy egg white, turn you mixer at medium speed, whisk in gel food color (if using), whisk in low speed just until combine.

Dump all almond mixture to meringue, then with fold motion combine almond mixture with the meringue. At first 10th or 15th folds you may still get uneven/ rough mixture, keep folding until you get mild batter BUT NOT RUNNY. The batter should has lava consistency. See more step by step illustration here.

Transfer to piping bag with round tip (about 2 cm). And pipe to baking tray line with parchment paper approximately 4 to 5 cm in diameter (depending how big you prefer for your macarons). Make space approximately 2,5 cm between each round.  

After you pipe all batter, rap that baking tray few times (each side) to remove air which might trap in the batter. İf you see some obvious bubble in surface of your macarons you can puncture it with toothpick. Sprinkle with desiccated coconut.

Let them sit for about 45 to 60 minute (depend on your local humidity and temperature) or until they dry on surface (when you gently touch it surface, it will not stick in your finger). This drying step to form "skin" on your macarons you you'll get nice "feet" when you bake later.

Pre heat your oven at 130 to 140 Celsius ( fan force) at least 15 minutes before baking time (from those drying time). Bake about 18 to 20 minute. 

Test them 1st before you take from oven by press them gently, if it's strong and hard enough they should be okay.

Cool them completely before remove from parchment paper, otherwise your macarons will stick on your parchment paper.

For Dark Cocoa filling I didn't actually weighing them (sorry guys..). It was just simply mixture of dark cocoa powder with sugar and cream.

In small sauce pan I mix approximately 5 tbsp dark cocoa powder with about 7 tbsp caster sugar (depends how sweet you wanna go) and 1 tsp vanilla powder. Mix in single cream (you can use milk). I forget how much cream I used. Just stir and watch the thickness.

Heat over medium low heat and stirring vigorously with small whisk to dissolve sugar and smooth the cocoa powder. You can check the sweetness, add more sugar if you like at this stage.

You can add cream/ milk if you see your filling away too thick, do it 1 spoon at a time. This cocoa filling will be thicken after keeping in fridge, so you need slightly runny mixture and not too thick.

Whisk the mixture until smooth and shiny.  Store in fridge until it's ready to use.