Chocolate French Macarons

1. Sift powdered sugar, salt, cocoa powder and almond meal/flour into a mixing bowl. Throw away any almonds that do not fit through the sieve. We want very small particles to ensure a better texture. Set aside.

2. Add the egg whites into a clean mixing bowl and add the granulated sugar. Whisk using an electric mixer until you have stiff peaks. (That means no curls when you take the whisk out. They should stand straight up.)

3. Once you have a non-curling stiff peak, sift the dry ingredients for a second time, this time sifting directly into the bowl of egg whites.

4. Preheat oven to 290 F.

5. With a rubber spatula, scrape along the sides of the bowl and fold the mixture a couple of times.
Continue to do this until you have a smooth mixture and ribbons fall off your spatula. (This will take approximately 50-70 folds). Your arm will get tired and it takes a little while, but this is a very important step.

6. Pour the mixture into a piping bag. If you do not have a piping bag, a plastic Ziplock type bag will work, though piping bags are best and you will be happy you used them.

7. Line a baking sheet with non-stick/parchment paper (a Silpat will work as well).

8. Pipe nickel sized cookies onto the tray with roughly 1”-1.25” spacing between them.

9. Carefully pick up the baking sheet, lifting it about 6” off the table and drop it. Repeat this 3 times. Then turn the tray 180 degrees and drop another 3 times. This helps remove some of the air pockets, which will help prevent cracking once baked.

10. Place the tray in the oven and bake for 20 minutes.

11. After 20 minutes take a knife and carefully run it underneath a cookie to see if it easily removes from the pan. Some say to try and pick one up to see if it releases, but I burned my finger. A knife worked much better. If the cookie does not easily release, bake for another 90 seconds and check again. (Larger cookies will need more time.)

12. Once finished baking, remove pan from oven and allow cookies to cool on the sheet.

13. While cooling, spoon some Nutella into another pastry bag.

14. Once the cookies are cooled, cut a small tip off of the Nutella pastry bag and carefully remove cookies from pan. (Don’t crush them after all your hard work! Be careful!) Pipe a small amount of Nutella onto the bottom side of half of the cookies.

15. Sandwich together and you’re set!

I like to put my assembled sandwiches into a sealed container and put it in the freezer for 10 minutes to help set the chocolate. You don’t have to do this, but it helps keep the structure a little better.

Store extras in an airtight container in the freezer for up to a week.