Home › The World's Kitchen › Chocolate Macaroons
Chocolate Macaroons
Prepare a macaroon paste adding to the paste, well mixed in, three tablespoons rasped chocolate, and proceed to finish the macaroons in exactly the same manner.
A one-line variation that assumes you already have the book's macaroon paste in front of you: ground blanched almonds, sugar and egg white beaten to a stiff, sticky dough. The only new instruction is the chocolate, and the only real difficulty is that it dries the batter out.
- What the base isThe book's own macaroon recipe supplies the paste; check it before starting. Period almond macaroon pastes typically run something on the order of blanched almonds pounded fine with roughly twice their weight in sugar and enough egg white (three or four) to work to a paste that holds a soft ribbon. Modern almond flour or a good almond paste stands in for the pounding.
- Rasped chocolate"Rasped" means grated on a fine rasp or nutmeg grater, not chopped. The block cooking chocolate meant here would have been unsweetened; use unsweetened or 100% cacao and grate it cold so it stays powdery rather than smearing.
- Three tablespoons is a small doseAgainst a full batch of paste that is a flavour tint, not a chocolate cookie. If you want a darker macaroon, cocoa gives more colour and flavour per volume, but subtract a like amount of almond to keep the paste from going stiff.
- Adjust the consistencyDry grated chocolate absorbs moisture and the paste will tighten. Slacken with a teaspoon of egg white at a time until it pipes or drops cleanly and settles slightly on the sheet.
- OvenThe recipe gives no heat; follow the book's plain macaroon recipe. As modern guidance, macaroons of this kind do well around 325F for 18-22 minutes: set and crackled on top, still soft inside. Chocolate hides browning, so judge by the crust and the edges lifting, not colour.
- Pan and paperMacaroons of this period are commonly dropped on wafer paper or buttered paper; parchment does the same job and lets them release without tearing. Cooling fully on the paper is what firms the bottoms.
- YieldDepends entirely on the base recipe's quantities, which this variation does not restate; a large batch of this kind will run to several dozen at a rounded teaspoon each. Halve it comfortably; the chocolate scales straight down.