Macarons with elderflower ganche

A while ago Ladurée opened in Stockholm, and as the macaron lover I am, I had to try a macaron from them, the macarons have apparently been flown all the way from Switzerland. A friend of mine lives near their store and when I visited her for some weeks ago, I finally got the chance to buy me a few. Macarons are perhaps a little too expensive to buy everyday but Ladurée has an amazingly wide selection with lots of exciting flavors so a few macarons did not hurt my wallet.

But it's much more fun to make them yourself. It takes a little time and can be a bit tricky at times, I tried to color the first batch I made, but when I added the color, the meringue batter became very loose after being very firm and nice, I had probably worked it too much. So I had to make a new batch. When making macarons yourself, the best thing is to figure out which filling you fancy for this particular batch. This time I was tempted to make a ganache and then found a recipe for elderflower ganche. There was still some of my elderflower lemonade left, so it had to be. I must say that it is the best tasting filling I've ever made for macarons!

Macarons with elderflower ganache

Macarons

115 g almond flour

230g icing sugar

144 g of egg white

72g caster sugar

seeds from 1 vanilla pod

½ tsp salt

How to:

Grind the almonds and icing sugar together in a food processor or, if you use almond flour, sift the almond meal and icing sugar in a bowl.
Whisk the egg whites in a large bowl until soft peaks form. Whisk in caster sugar, salt and vanilla seeds so that it becomes a thick and glossy meringue batter.
Fold in the almond mixture (about one-third at a time) into the meringue batter with a spatula. When all the dry ingredients have been mixed in properly, continue to divide and fold the meringue mixture until batter is thick and shiny with a bit chewy texture.
Pour the meringue mixture into a spun or plastic bag fitted with a 1 cm wide tip around the nozzle. Pipe out on parchment paper, or do as I do and invest in a macaron mold made of silicone, it has given me much better results. Tap with your hand over the baking sheet so that any air bubbles in the macarons disappear. Let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes and heat the oven to 150 degrees C.
Bake for 10-15 minutes. Let the macarons cool for about 10 minutes and remove them from the baking paper.

Elderflower ganache

1 cup undiluted elderflower lemonade

1 tsp lemon juice

1/3 cup heavy cream

100 g of white chocolate

How to:

Heat the elderberry lemonade on low heat and let it reduce until there is about half of it left. Add lemon juice and cream and bring to boil. Stir in the white chocolate and let it melt so that the ganache becomes smooth. Pour into a bowl and let cool in the fridge until it set. Pipe or click the ganache on half of macarons and then add each filled with an unfilled.