Ingredients
- 125g ground almonds
- 250g icing sugar
- ½tsp Schwartz Cinnamon Powder
- ¼tsp Schwartz Ground Nutmeg
- a small pinch of Schwartz Ground Cloves
- 4 large free range eggs, whites of
- 100g caster sugar
- a pinch of Schwartz Sea Salt
- 1 Schwartz Vanilla Pod, seeds of
- orange food gel
- 170ml double cream
- 1 Schwartz Vanilla Pod, seeds of
- ½tsp Schwartz Hot Chilli Powder
- 300g white chocolate
For this recipe, you will need…
- greaseproof paper
- piping bags
- ½ inch piping nozzle
- spatula
Ingredients breakdown
For the macarons…
- 125g ground almonds
- 250g icing sugar
- ½ tsp Schwartz Cinnamon Powder
- ¼ tsp Schwartz Ground Nutmeg
- a small pinch of Schwartz Ground Cloves
- 4 large free-range eggs, whites of
- 100g caster sugar
- a pinch of Schwartz Sea Salt
- 1 Schwartz Vanilla Pod, seeds of
- orange food gel
For the ganache…
- 170ml double cream
- 1 vanilla pod, seeds of
- ½ tsp Schwartz Hot Chilli Powder
- 300g white chocolate
method
Preheat oven to 180°C/ 350°F/gas 4.
Line 2-3 large baking trays with non-stick greaseproof paper. Using a small cookie cutter or a £2 coin, mark out 60 circles roughly an inch apart.
In a bowl, sieve the icing sugar, ground almonds, Schwartz Cinnamon Powder, Schwartz Ground Nutmeg and a small pinch of Schwartz Ground Cloves. For an extra fine mixture, blitz your almonds in a food processor before sieving.
Ensuring your eggs are at room temperature, separate the whites from the yolks. Put the egg whites and a pinch of salt into a clean mixing bowl and whisk until soft peaks form. Split your vanilla pod in half and scrape out the seeds, adding to the bowl. Gradually add the caster sugar and whisk until the mixture resembles a thick, glossy meringue that holds stiff peaks. If you wish to add colour, now is the time to do so. Add more than you need as the colour will lighten after the dry ingredients are added. Gently fold in the colour using a spatula: slide your spatula on the side of the bowl under the egg whites and bring the bottom up to the top.
Add the dry mix to the bowl, and using a spatula rather than a wooden spoon (as this can beat the air out of your mixture) carefully blend everything together until smooth. Consistency matters! You are looking for a smooth mixture that drops off the spoon and slowly melts back into the mixture. Over-stirred and your Macarons will be flat. Under-stirred and your macarons won’t have a smooth, shiny shell. Don’t let this give you the heeby-jeebies though, even if they don’t come out looking right they’ll still taste amazing and are perfect for snacking on while you try again!
Using a piping bag and plain 1cm nozzle, pipe 60 discs onto your baking sheets. The next few steps are VERY important. You must leave your macarons to ‘dry’ at room temperature for at least 30 minutes, but ideally an hour. Worry not if your macarons have a pointy tip: as they rest before cooking, they will smooth out. You can also help the process: firmly bang each baking sheet on the countertop a few times. This will even out the caps and take the air bubbles out of them.
After drying, they should now have formed a non-sticky skin. Pop in the oven for 16-18 minutes, until just set and crisp. Remove the macarons from the oven and let them cool on a wire rack.
Finely chop up your white chocolate and set it aside in a large bowl.
Add your double cream and vanilla to a pan and pop onto low heat. Warm through until the mixture starts to simmer. Once your mixture is simmering, take it off the heat and pour directly over your white chocolate. Allow to sit for a couple of minutes, then add your Schwartz Hot Chilli Powder and stir to combine, starting from the centre and working your way outwards.
Cover with cling film – sitting the cling film in contact with the surface of the ganache to stop a skin forming – and pop into the fridge for at least an hour to firm.
When your macarons have completely cooled, transfer the ganache to a piping bag and pipe out a grape-sized blob of ganache onto the flat side of a macaron shell. Sandwich with a macaron shell of equal size and tah dah!
Combine icing sugar and black food colouring in a bowl, adding water whenever necessary, until you have a thick paste. Add to a piping bag and use to draw a spooktacular pumpkin design on your pumpkin macarons. For the final touch, crunch up some pretzels and pop a fragment into the top of your macaron pumpkins to resemble the stalk.
