Vegan chocolate ginger macaron

The delicious French macaron is not an easy cookie to bake. You will need some patience and time. A perfect project during these corona crisis days. And this vegan chocolate ginger macaron is delicious!

Baking ordinary macarons is a challenge, but making vegan macarons is even more difficult! I have pulled so many failed bakes out of my oven. Sometimes my macarons did not have the characteristic feet or the feet were slanted, sometimes they collapsed and other times they were rock hard. After dozens of attempts I finally had a fairly reliable recipe, but I was not completely satisfied.
After a few months of macaron baking break time, I started again a few weeks ago.
This time I used Deepa Jha’s recipe (www.deesbakecraft.in). I was not very hopeful, but really danced a jig in the kitchen when I finally pulled a baking tray filled with perfect chocolate macaron shells out of the oven. They had nice even feet and were not hollow inside.
I adapted Deepa’s recipe slightly to make it work for me. I baked them slightly shorter and in slightly lower oven. And drying the shells under the extraction hood or with a fan is really necessary in our humid country.
Be warned though! You probably will have to practice a few times before this recipe works out for you. Getting the consistency of the mixture right is really very important. Folding the mixture until it has the right consistency (macaronage) is easy. But if you have never made them before it is hard to tell when you should stop mixing. You should also pipe the shells very evenly and straight from above. Prepare to have a few misses and work with small batches to practice. You can find the non-vegan version here. 

Vegan chocolate ginger macaron

for about 10 macarons

For the shells

90 g / 6 tbsp aquafaba
65 g / 2/3 cups almond flour
15 g / 2 tbsp cocoa powder
75 g ¾ cup powdered sugar
40 g / 1/3 cup caster sugar
lemon juice to degrease the bowl and beaters

for the filling
100 g / ½ cup finely chopped dark vegan chocolate
80 g / 1/3 cup soy cream (fat percentage ± 25%) or oat cream
25 g / 1 ½ tbsp vegan butter or odorless coconut oil in flakes
50 g / ¼ cup crystallized ginger, finely chopped + extra to decorate

Also needed: piping bag with nozzle of ± ½ cm / 1/5 inch

Reduce the aquafaba to 50 g / 3 ½ tbsp. Leave to cool and cool completely in the refrigerator. It will be a gloopy thick liquid. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.

Grind the powdered sugar with the almond flour and the powdered sugar even finer in a small food processor. Strain through a fine sieve and discard any remaining bits left in the sieve.

Wipe down the bowl and beaters with lemon juice. Beat the aquafaba with a mixer until foamy and then gradually beat in the fine granulated sugar. Beat until the mixture forms stiff peaks. Watch my (Dutch) instruction video here)Fold in half of the almond flour until incorporated. Fold in the rest of the almond mixture and continue to fold until the mixture becomes slightly more liquid, but still thick. The consistency is sometimes compared to lava.

Fill the piping bag with the macaron mixture. Pipe small heaps (shells) of ± 3½ cm / 1 ½ inch Ø on the baking tray. I usually slowly count out loud to three to get equally sized caps. Drop the baking tray onto the counter a few times from a height of ± 10 cm./ 4 inches so the heaps become a little flatter, the surface becomes smoother and the air bubbles escapes.

Place the baking tray under an extractor hood and set it to maximum. Let the macarons dry for ± 2-3 hours. The tops should no longer be sticky.

Preheat the oven to 125 °C / 260 °F (use an oven thermometer to check how hot your oven really is) and bake them in the middle of the oven for ± 30 min. Turn off the oven and leave to cool in the oven with the door ajar for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely on the baking sheet.

Meanwhile, make the filling. Bring the cream to a boil. Place the chocolate in a heat resistant bowl and pour the hot cream on top. Stir very slowly until the chocolate has melted and add the butter. Stir in the ginger. Leave to cool to a pipeable consistency and pipe some ganache on to the flat side of half of the shells. Cover with the other half of the shells. Sprinkle the sides with the extra ginger.

Store the macarons in an airtight container overnight to mature.

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