Mocha Hazelnut Macarons

If you’re using whole almonds, you’ll need to grind them. Place the almonds in a food processor and roughly grind them. It doesn’t need to be too fine, but there shouldn’t be any large chunks. Add half of the powdered sugar and continue grinding the almonds until they are very fine. Add the rest of the powdered sugar and grind for another 15-30 seconds.

Make the meringue. Mix together the granulated sugar and salt in a small bowl. In a very clean bowl using an electric mixer, begin beating the egg whites on medium-low speed until frothy, about 1-2 minutes. Increase speed to medium, and gradually add the granulated sugar-salt mixture, and beat until soft peaks form, about 2-3 minutes. Increase speed to high, and beat until the meringue is very stiff and shiny, about 2-3 minutes.

Hold a mesh strainer over the meringue, and sift the almond mixture over the meringue. Return any pieces of almond that don’t pass through the strainer to the food processor, and grind them some more, and sift them again. There may still be a few bits that are too big (less than a tablespoonful); just add them to the meringue.

Begin folding the dry ingredients into the meringue. Be sure to scrape the edges of the bowl. When done, the batter should be thick, but somewhat fluid. If not, keep folding some more. Do the ribbon and/glop test (as follows) to check.

Ribbon test: Hold a spatula full of batter over the bowl, and it should fall into the bowl in a thick ribbon. The ribbon should re-incorporate into the batter within about 30 seconds.
Glop test: Drop a spoonful of batter onto a plate. The peak should smooth out within 10 seconds.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or Silipat.

Put the batter into a pastry bag with a round tip about ¼-inch wide. Pipe 1-inch wide circles onto the prepared cookie sheet, leaving around 1 inch between circles.

Rap the baking sheet against a counter or tape several times to release any air bubbles trapped in the batter. You should see bubbles rise to the top and pop.

Preheat oven to 300 F. Allow the batter to rest in the open air until the tops are set (when you lightly touch the circles with a finger, no batter sticks to it).

Put the macarons in the oven and bake for 18-20 minutes, until the cookies can come cleanly off the parchment paper, and the insides are done. (They should be slightly damp on the inside, but not wet and sticky.) Remove pan from the oven. Let the shells cool completely.

For the filling: In a medium sized bowl mix together the instant coffee granules, honey and hot water. If the coffee doesn’t dissolve completely, add another tablespoon of water. Brush the bottoms of all the macaron shells with the coffee syrup.

Fill the macarons with Nutella. Place about a teaspoon of Nutella on the flat side of a macaron shell and place another shell on top. Repeat until you’ve filled them all. Refrigerate the macarons overnight.

Adapted from Bravetart.