Chocolate French Macarons with Raspberry Filling

Get Ready

1. Preheat your oven to 325F. Use an oven thermometer to be sure your oven temperature is exact. Slight variances will cause large changes in your results.
2. In a medium bowl, mix together the powdered sugar, almond flour, and cocoa powder. Set aside.

Make the Meringue

1. In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until foamy with an electric hand mixer fitted with wire whipping beaters and set to medium high speed. (You're looking for the consistency of bath tub bubbles.)
2. Add the cream of tartar and beat for a few seconds more.
3. While beating, slowly add the granulated sugar. Continue to beat until you have nearly stiff peaks, 1-2 minutes. (To tell if you have nearly stiff peaks, stop beating, and lightly dip the beaters into the meringue. When you pull the beaters out of the meringue, the peaks that form should stand up, with the tips folding over only slightly.)

Add the Dry Ingredients

1. Sift half of the almond flour mixture into the bowl with the meringue. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the meringue for a few strokes, using a circular motion around the bowl and under the batter. Sift in the remaining almond flour mixture and continue to fold, until the dry ingredients are completely incorporated into the meringue. The batter should be smooth and glossy. It should slowly shift if you tip the bowl, but it should not be too runny or liquidy.

Piping Macarons

1. Fill a large pastry bag fitted with a ½ inch tip with the batter. (If you don’t have a pastry bag, you can use a quart Ziploc bag with one corner snipped to create a ½ inch hole.)
2. Gently pipe the batter into 2 inch circles spaced 1 inch apart onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. To pipe, hover your tip a 1/2 inch above the cookie sheet and squeeze the bag gently. The meringue should flow in an even circle outward from your tip. Stop piping when you have a 2 inch diameter circle. Gently lift your tip. The batter should flatten into itself after a few seconds, but if it forms a small beak, that’s ok. We’ll take care of those in a minute.
3. After piping your cookies, if they still have a small beak, dip your finger in a bowl of cool water to slightly dampen it. Gently pat the piped meringue to flatten the beaks and create a smooth top.
4. Let the piped cookies rest until a dry film forms on the macaron, the batter should lose its shininess and become dull in color. You should be able to lightly touch the cookies and the batter shouldn’t stick to your finger. This could take anywhere from 20-40 minutes, depending on the batter and the moisture level of your kitchen.

Baking the Macarons

1. Bake the rested macarons at 325F for 14-15 minutes until crisp on the outside and dry to the touch. (The foot should not squish or wiggle when you lightly touch them.)
2. Remove the macarons form the oven and let them cool on the baking sheet for 15-20 minutes before gently removing them from the parchment paper to cool on a wire rack completely before filling.

Make the Filling

1. While the cookies are cooling, make the filing. Beat butter and jam with an electric hand mixer fitted with wire whisk beaters on medium speed until the butter is fluffy and the two are combined. Slowly add the powdered sugar until a thick and fluffy frosting forms. It should be spreadable but firm.

Filling the Macarons

1. When cookies are completely cool, spread about 1 tsp of filling on the bottom of one cookie. Gently sandwich the filling with a second cookie, pressing until the filling nearly reaches the edges of the cookies.

Storing Macarons

1. Store the filled macarons in a sealed container on the counter for up to a week or in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.
2. We recommend filling the sandwiches no more than 1 day before you plan to serve them. If you want to make your cookies ahead of time, keep the cookies, unfilled, in a sealed, dry container, until you are ready to fill them.