Salted Caramel Macarons

It’s National Dessert Day tomorrow (*shrugs* apparently… When’s National Naming Days Day, I wonder?), not that I need any excuse to scoff sweet things, of course – especially around this time of year.  I’m already on to my second pack of Fiendish Fancies, and today I decided to make some Halloween-ish Macarons.  I’ve made them a couple of times before and they’re a bit fiddily, but there are a few short cuts you can take to make the job a little easier (like buying butter cream rather than making it yourself, shh!).  I mean, alright, they’re not going to win any awards or put Ladurée out of business, but they taste good – and that’s all that matters, right?

Salted Caramel Macarons

Ingredients

• 125g icing sugar
• 125g ground almonds
• 90g egg whites
• 110g caster sugar
• A couple of drops of orange food colouring
• Pre-made Buttercream icing
• Salted Caramel Flavoring (yep, you can buy it!)
• Melted chocolate to decorate

1. Whisk together the caster sugar and egg whites to form stiff white peaks, then add the food colouring.
2. Sieve the icing sugar and ground almonds into the mixture, then fold in.
3. To get a perfect coin shape use a piping bag and nozzle, but you can do just as good a job with a pointed spoon and a steady hand.  Pipe out onto a lined baking tray, then leave to rest for 15 minutes.
4. Bake at 160° for about 10 minutes.
5. Sandwich with your flavoured buttercream, drizzle with chocolate, then scoff!

I’m going to carve up my pale pumpkin this weekend (although it’s meant to be really hot here in Wales – very un-Halloween like!).  Have a lovely weekend everyone! 🙂