Mogador macarons (Milk chocolate and passion fruit)
Recently, somebody reminded me: “Hey your road to pastry started because of macarons! Why did you stop baking them?”.
I really did not have a decent reply to that rhetorical question, but I knew it actually meant “Make some macarons! Now!“.
So you know what? I made some macarons! 🙂 This recipe of the famous “Mogador” macarons comes from the master himself, Pierre Hermé.
Pierre Hermé creates his products starting from key flavors and applying them to all sort of pastries. “Mogador” is one of his signature flavors, a mix of passion fruit and milk chocolate, and it’s perfect in macarons.
Yellow shells, dusted with cocoa powder, are the visual signature of these delicate treats. The filling is a fruit ganache, made with passion fruit juice instead of cream and with a Jivara milk chocolate (Jivara is a 40% chocolate by Valrhona; if you can’t find it, you can replace it with a chocolate of similar percentage).
If you’ve never baked macarons, you might want to take a look at this page with some detailed instructions, although the step-by-step recipe below is quite complete.
What do you think about the recipe? Do you like these more than the pistachio macarons which have been the most read recipe of this blog for months? 🙂
Mogador macarons (Milk chocolate and passion fruit)
Print recipeIngredients
Passion fruit and milk chocolate ganache
| 125g | Passion fruit juice (from around 5 fruits) |
| 275g | Jivara milk chocolate (40%) |
| 50g | Butter, room temperature |
Macaron shells
| 150g | Almond flour |
| 150g | Powdered sugar |
| 55g | Egg whites (for the almond and sugar mixture) |
| 55g | Egg whites (for the Italian meringue) |
| 2.5g | Yellow food dye |
| 0.25g | Red food dye |
| 150g | Granulated sugar |
| 35g | Water |
| As needed | Cocoa powder |
Directions
Passion fruit and milk chocolate ganache
1
Cut the passion fruits in two and extract the pulp with a teaspoon. Strain the pulp to remove the seeds and obtain 125g of juice.
2
Coarsely chop the chocolate and place it in a bowl over a bain marie until it's only half melted
3
Bring the passion fruit juice to a boil in a saucepan then pour it over the chocolate in three times, stirring with a spatula every time
4
When the mixture reaches 60°C, incorporate the diced butter
5
Mix the ganache with an immersion blender for a few minutes to remove all the air. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for at least 6 hours, or better overnight.
Macaron shells
6
Put the almond flour and powdered sugar in a food processor and mix 2-3 times for about 10 seconds each, with at least 10 seconds of pause
7
Incorporate the first half of the egg whites in the powder mixture until you obtain a thick paste
8
In the meantime, bring the granulated sugar and water to a boil in a saucepan on medium heat
9
When the sugar syrup reaches 108°C, start whipping the egg whites with the food colouring at high speed.
10
When the sugar reaches 119°C, pour it slowly on the egg whites in a steady stream between the side of the bowl and the beater while the mixer is running. Continue beating at medium speed until the egg whites are completely cool. At this point, you have the so-called Italian meringue. The Italian meringue is ready for macarons when it forms a soft but firm peak usually called "bec d'oiseau" ("bird's beak").
11
Using a spatula, fold in a third of the meringue into the macaron paste
12
Macaronage: carefully fold in the remaining meringue with an upward movement that starts from the centre and reaches the border of the bowl; at the same time, make sure you slightly turn the bowl in the opposite direction of the spatula. The batter is ready when it becomes shiny and it is not too thick nor too runny. You can check if the batter is ready by passing the spatula vertically in it: if the batter return to its initial position in about 5 seconds, it's ready.
13
Hold vertically a pastry bag fitted with a medium plain tip and pipe the batter into small rounds (about 3-4cm each) on paper-lined sheet pans. (See method in the notes) - Tip: to make sure the parchment paper doesn't move when you pipe the macarons, pipe some "dots" of batter in the four corners of the pan
14
Sprinkle the shells with cocoa powder, then lift the pan 20cm above the table with two hands and let it drop twice (or tap it a couple of times on the bottom) to eliminate any air bubbles
Assembling the macarons
15
Let the piped batter sit at room temperature for 30-40 minutes, then bake in an oven preheated at 180° for 12 minutes. Slightly open and close quickly the oven door after 4 and 8 minutes.
16
Cool the macarons completely before removing them from the pan. Press the interior of the baked shells gently in the centre (without crushing them!) in order to make more room for the filling
17
Pipe the room temperature passion fruit ganache in the middle of a shell
18
Sandwich two shells together and store for 24 hours in the fridge before serving
Note
- When the food processor is in action, its blades will heat the almond flour and pistachios: for this reason it is very important to work with chilled ingredients and to avoid overheating them by pausing the processor regularly
- Macarons require precision in terms of quantities, technique and also temperature: use a chilled almond flour, room temperature egg whites and check the sugar syrup temperature with a thermometer (yes you really need it, but it just costs about 15€)
- Based on personal experience, silicone mats are not the best choice for macarons as the "crown" at the bottom might not develop well; I prefer the good old parchment paper in this case
- To pipe the batter, keep the pastry bag vertically and mechanically apply the following technique: 1) Pipe enough batter - 2) Stop piping - 3) Draw a round on top of the piped macaron and quickly lift the piping bag vertically at the same time
- For best results, pipe the macarons alternately in the pan, like in the pictures
- It is possible to scale this recipe, but be careful when scaling down since it can be difficult to whip well less than 2 egg whites
- Macarons need to absorb humidity for at least one day in the fridge . Then they can keep for up to 5 days in an airtight container in the fridge and can be frozen as well for several months.
