Banoffee Macarons

A family favourite in our house is a good ol' banoffe pie - so for this post I have taken inspiration from this and created a banoffe macaron. The yummy flavours of our favourite dessert pie all combined into a tiny little fancy mouthful of deliciousness. These are sure to impress your friends and family and are perfect for any afternoon tea party.

Experimenting with my own recipes is something that is very new to me - and an area I need to improve if my baker dreams are to become a reality. I've made a few changes to recipes  in the past but this is my first real baking creation without a tried an tested recipe (from a book) behind me.

So, lets get started!

Macarons are little french meringue cookies. These ones are going to be filled with a banana toffee cream, sprinkled with digestive biscuit crumbs and topped with tempered chocolate and banana chips. If you were being really good you would make your own digestive biscuits to crumble. I haven't done this as shop brought ones save time. However, if I were making these for Paul and Mary I would definitely make my own!





For the macarons you will need:

• 170g icing sugar
• 160g ground almonds
• 120ml egg whites
• 160g caster sugar
• Food colouring paste (optional)

For the toffee filling:

• 1 ripe bananas
• 60g unsalted butter
• 60g soft brown sugar
• 1/2 a tin of condensed milk
• 150ml double cream

For the topping:

• 100g chocolate (any you like - the better quality the easier it is to temper)
• banana chips
• 2 digestive biscuits, crumbled

Equipment wise you will need and electric whisk or free standing mixer, a piping bag and your usual scales and bowls. Tempering chocolate is also easier with a thermometer although it isn't completely necessary.

To make the macarons:

• Start by lining a couple of baking trays with baking parchment - if you have one you can use silicone trays that are especially for macarons and help you to pipe even sizes. I don't have one so printed out lots of 4cm circles on a piece of A4 paper which can be put underneath your baking parchment when piping to ensure even sizes (remember to remove this sheet before baking). I'm not a massive fan of silicone bake wear and find that particularly with sponges it impacts on the texture and makes the outside of cakes quite shiny and crunchy.
• Mix the icing sugar and ground almonds together and then sieve the mixture into a large bowl. Get rid of any larger almond pieces that don't fit through the sieve.



Ground almond, icing sugar and egg paste

• Add half of the egg whites and mix into a thick paste.

• Put 50ml of water and the caster sugar into a pan, dissolving the sugar and then bringing to the boil. If you have a thermometer cook the syrup until it reaches 118c.If not boil until it becomes clear and there are no sugar granules left undissolved.
• Whilst your sugar is as temperature whisk the remaining egg whites on a high speed to form soft peaks. Continue whisking the egg whites whilst steadily pouring in the syrup mixture. Keeping whisking until the mixture has cooled slightly and the bowl is still warm but not hot. 

Your aiming for a glossy meringue mixture

• At this stage you can whisk in any food colouring. 
• Combine your meringue and almond mixture.
• You're now ready to transfer the mix into a piping bag with a 1cm circular nozzle.
• Pipe out 40 evenly sized circles and leave to rest for 30 minutes before cooking for 12 minutes at 160c in a fan oven. Whilst your macarons are cooking you can make a start on the toffee. 
• When your macarons are cooked slide the baking parchment with the cooked macarons onto your work surface and leave to cool.

Top tip - dip your finger in water and gently press
down the little peaks to stop them from burning

To make the toffee:

• Melt the butter and sugar together, when the sugar is dissolved add the condensed milk and bring to the boil and allow to boil rapidly for a couple of minutes. When the mixture has thickened take it off the heat and allow it to cool for a few minutes before adding two well mashed or blended bananas.
• Allow your toffee to chill for about 1 hour in the fridge - you want it to be fairly firm so that when mixed with the cream and piped it holds its shape.
• When your toffee is at the right consistently fold in the whipped double cream.

The finishing touches:

• Roughly chop your banana chips and crumble about 2 digestive biscuits leaving a few bigger crumbs to add a bit of texture.
• Temper your chocolate (see below for instructions) or just melt it and put it in a piping bag.
• Leaving your macarons on the baking parchment, snip a small corner off your piping bag and get creative with your chocolate - I went for a simple zig zag pattern back and forth. Be careful not to go over the top! Too much chocolate may ruin the overall look of your finished macaron.
• Sprinkle banana chips and a small amount of biscuit crumbs over the chocolate before it sets.

• When the chocolate is completely set pipe or spoon a generous portion of your toffee cream onto one macaron disk, sprinkle over some more crumbled digestive biscuits before  sandwiching between another macaron shell. 

The finished result

That's it! You're all done, now its time to wash up, put the kettle on and complete the all important taste test. As I can't eat chocolate at the moment I made a few without it on and sprinkled banana chips over the toffee cream instead. I'll have to wait until July to make these again so that I can have the full banoffee macaron experience!

Macaron with banana toffee cream, tempered chocolate,
banana chips and digestive pieces

Tempering chocolate:

Tempering chocolate is just a fancy way of doing it so that when it sets it is shiny.

To temper chocolate put 3/4 of your chocolate into a heat proof bowl and melt gently over simmering hot water (not boiling). Dark chocolate should be melted until it reaches 50-55c. Milk or white chocolate to 45c. Removed from the heat and add the rest of your chocolate. This will lower the temperature. For dark chocolate your aiming for 28-29c or 27-28c of milk or white. Return to the heat one last time to bring the temperature back up to 31-32c or 28-29c. 

Your chocolate should now be ready to use!