How to Make-caron!

Make your own Macarons with a few easy steps!

Post by Claire Elise Stephens - one of many real girls inspired by Haylie Duff to have adventures in the kitchen.

With Francois Payard's  Make-caron Kit, the hard part is already done for you -- the shells! Just like Haylie uses to-go dough and crescent rolls and adds her own set of unique ingredients, the Make-carons are perfectly baked shells, ready to go. All you have to do is mix your favorite flavor of ganache.

 

I took a few of the classic flavors from Francois Payard -- vanilla, chocolate, and raspberry -- to go with my Raspberry shells. And just like a Haylie recipe, ganache is only a few steps and a few ingredients.

Raspberry Ganache                Vanilla Ganache                    Chocolate Ganache

10.5 oz white chocolate         9 oz white chocolate            8 oz semi-sweet chocolate

5.25 oz heavy cream              3/4 cup heavy cream             1 cup heavy cream

4.8 oz fresh raspberries          1 vanilla bean, scraped          2 tablespoons corn syrup

The basics of ganache: cream, chocolate, flavor. That's it! Ingredients above make about 2 cups, enough to fill all 20 of the pairs of shells that come in a Make-caron kit.

1) First, chop your (white or semi-sweet) chocolate and put in a metal bowl. Make sure the filling isn't too dry (so don't put too much chocolate.)

   

2) Prepare your ingredients.

     a. For the raspberry, simply chop the raspberries.

     b. For the chocolate, measure out your corn syrup.

     c. For the vanilla, scrape your vanilla bean.

*COOKING TIP* Vanilla beans are long, thin beans that aren't always an easy find at your grocery store, but organic and health food places should have them. They're around $5 a bean, so you'll likely only be getting one or two.

   

Scraping a vanilla bean means cutting it lengthwise and scraping out the tiny seeds inside, then putting the seeds (and the pod) directly into the cream. If you've ever wondered by vanilla bean flavored things have tiny specs in them, now you know!

3) Bring heavy cream to a boil along with your chopped raspberries or scraped vanilla bean.

*COOKING TIP* Keep an eye on your boiling cream! It expands quickly and you'll fast have a mess on your stovetop if you don't watch it as it heats up. Turn the heat off as soon as it's boiling.

 

4) Pour hot cream over your chopped chocolate and whisk until smooth. (For vanilla -- remove vanilla pod before whisking. For chocolate, add the corn syrup to chocolate before whisking)

5) Let ganache cool for 2 hours or overnight. (chocolate ganache only need to sit for 30 minutes.

6) When cool, pipe ganache onto flat side of one of the shells, and put the other on top like a sandwich. Once you put the top shell on, smooth out the edges if the ganache overflows over the sides.

*COOKING TIP* How to pipe ganache? Put your ganache in a sealable plastic bag and cut a small corner off the bottom corner, and squeeze out through the hole for controlled release. You can also use pastry bags with decorative tips, like when decorating cakes.

  

7) Refrigerate overnight. Allow 2-3 hours sitting at room temperature to get the perfect consistency and temperature (70°F) before eating. 

Enjoy your macarons! Just like most of Haylie's recipes, you can add whatever flavor or ganache you like into the shells, feel free to get creative! Just make sure that ganache isn't too dry so there is enough moisture to bind the shells. 

To win a Make-caron Kit from Francois Payard or a 24 piece of their Parisian Macarons, enter the giveaway here! Happy Macaron Day!

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Ora Media, LLC, its affiliates, or its employees.

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