Chocolate Peanut Butter Macarons

Since starting work I've developed a bit of a morning routine. I'm not usually hungry at 7.30am on a weekday morning but my stomach is growling by 9.30am when I'm at work. So this is my breakfast time - and it always consists of two slices of smooth peanut butter on toast, and usually a mug of hot chocolate on the side.

I don't think I will ever be sick of the peanut butter and chocolate combination. I love the sweetness of the chocolate against the nutty, slightly salty flavour of the peanut butter and I thought it would make the perfect macaron flavour. What makes these macarons even better is that you don't even have to make a filling for the macaron shells. I just simply heated up some peanut butter so that it was easy to spread and sandwiched it between two macaron shells. It's best to leave these to sit in the fridge for a night or two since the peanut butter doesn't have too much liquid in it so the filling will take a bit longer to soften the shells and for the flavour to permeate into the macaron shells.

You could of course go ahead and make a peanut butter buttercream but I think the saltiness of the peanut butter tends to get lost with the addition of sugar so I think just using plain peanut butter for the filling is perfect. Of course, you can always use crunchy peanut butter but I'm a smooth peanut butter kind of girl :)

And since it's now acceptable to have cake for breakfast (muffins and banana bread are really just an excuse to eat cake for brekky, am I right?), I don't see why you couldn't have chocolate peanut butter macarons for breakfast. After all, breakfast is the most important meal of the day and you might as well have something tasty heh =D

(Note: Penguin says Feed Me does not condone the eating of macarons for breakfast - eat healthy, high protein, low GI breakfasts people!)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Macarons
Recipe adapted from Trissalicious

100g egg whites (about 3), aged
125g almond meal
145g pure icing sugar
5g cocoa powder
100g caster sugar
peanut butter for filling

1. Age your egg whites by leaving them out at room temperature for 24-48 hours, or for 3-5 days in the fridge. Process almond meal, icing sugar and cocoa powder in a food processor and sift into a bowl. Process any remaining lumps again and sift again – discard any bits that do not fit through the sieve.

2. Beat egg whites until soft peaks, then gradually add the caster sugar whilst beating until stiff peaks form. Add the dry ingredients in two additions and mix quickly with a spatula a few times to get rid of any large air bubbles. Once the ingredients are starting to incorporate, slow down and fold the mixture until it flows like magma and falls in ribbons from the spatula. Pipe 3cm circles onto sheets lined with baking paper. Confidently rap the baking sheet onto the counter top to allow bubbles to come to the surface, pop these with a toothpick. Leave the shells out to dry for 30 minutes to an hour to allow a skin to develop on top – when you can touch the surface without any mixture sticking to your finger, they are ready.

3. Preheat the oven to 140ºC. If you have thin baking sheets, place an overturned baking tray into the oven while it is preheating. When the macarons are ready, place the baking sheet on top of the overturned baking tray and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, depending on your oven. The macarons are usually ready when they peel back from the baking paper easily. When they have finished baking, carefully peel the macarons from the baking paper and place onto a wire rack to cool.

4.. When the macarons are cool, pair up the shells. Nuke your peanut butter in a heatproof bowl in the microwave until it is soft enough to spread easily. Spoon a small amount into the centre of one of the macaron shells and sandwich with the other. If your peanut butter becomes too hard to work with, just nuke it in the microwave on 10 second bursts until it is soft again. Repeat until all your macaron shells are filled. Place in an airtight container to mature for at least 24 hours.