Dark Chocoolate and Coconut Macarons

Chocolate coconut macarons

Each year J is an exhibitor at New York's Winter Antiques Show, one of the best art and antiques shows in New York, and I have a tradition of supplying macarons for her to share with clients and fellow dealers.

Inspired by our flavor discovery at the renowned Berthillon, on the Île Saint-Louis -- sorbert cacao amer with glace noix de coco -- I set out to make chocolate coconut macarons this year. I found two credible recipes in my cookbook collection, one by Pierre Hermé, the king of macarons, and the other by the excellent pâtissier Christophe Felder. The problem with both was that they used milk chocolate, which J does not like. While I sensed that milk chocolate might be better in theory, the way hazelnut gianduja is better with milk chocolate, I decided to stick with dark. But not too dark: I used Ghirardelli's 60% baking bar to avoid the potential clash between the bitterness of very dark chocolate with the gentle sweetness of the coconut. Also, the texture of very bitter chocolate when melted is not as smooth as that of more moderate choices.

Macaron shells are made by folding a soft meringue into a mixture of confectioner's sugar and powdered almonds. The meringue may be French style, made by mixing granulated sugar into egg whites as they get whipped to soft peaks, or Italian style, made by mixing hot sugar syrup into the egg whites and whipping until the whites cool down. Italian meringue is much harder to make but results in a meringue that has a denser texture and is more forgiving to cook with. So I went with Pierre Herme's Italian  meringue mixed with unsweetened coconut flakes and, to my amazement, it came out perfectly.

Uncooked coconut topped macaron shells

Baked macaaron shells, interior

Baked macaron shells, tops

 For the filling I made Pierre's chocolate coconut ganache, using the aforesaid 60% chocolate and this, too, came out well. But this was no surprise, since a ganache is very easy to make.

There remained only the assembly, making little chocolate ganache sandwiches with still more coconut flakes sprinkled on top, and then a couple of days in the fridge. This improves the texture dramatically, and two days later they were perfect. Here's a nice one:

Chocolate covered macaron

Technically, they were the best I have ever made, by far, as attested by a number of my "customers." Personally, though, I would have preferred an even darker chocolate ganache made without coconut in order to recapture the satisfying chocolate hit that I remembered from Berthillon.

Next time I hope to reach chocolate coconut macaron Nirvana!

Bobby Jay