Vanilla whipped ganache:
- Start by softening your gelatin in very cold water for at least 20 minutes, until it absorbs enough water to reach its full gelling power.
- Heat your cream (do not boil, otherwise it will not whip properly!) with your La Patelière natural Bourbon vanilla paste from Madagascar, then add the gelatin.
Put your white chocolate in a bowl, then pour the cream over it in three stages, mixing with a whisk from the inside out (this is called “making a core”) and ensuring a smooth, even texture each time. - Add the cold cream, mix for 2-3 minutes with a hand blender, then transfer to a clean container, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 24 hours.
Vanilla macarons:
- Put the sifted La Patelière organic icing sugar and La Patelière extra-fine almond powder in a large bowl (this is called “tant pour tant” because there is the same amount of each ingredient). Mix the tant pour tant with 110 g of raw egg whites and the vanilla, and place the remaining 110 g of egg whites in the bowl of your food processor fitted with the whisk attachment.
- In a small saucepan, heat the water and sugar until the syrup reaches 240°F. Start your mixer on low speed to begin beating the egg whites, then continue cooking the syrup until it reaches 249°F. Remove the saucepan from the heat and pour the syrup into the egg whites, whisking on low speed. Beat until the meringue is lukewarm to the touch, smooth, and shiny.
- Using a spatula, begin to fold 1/4 of the Italian meringue into the vanilla mixture, stirring vigorously. Now, more gently, fold in the rest of the meringue, crushing the mixture to make it fall back down. You want the macaron mixture to form a ribbon and be able to form a figure 8 without breaking.
- Preheat your oven to 165°C fan oven and fill a piping bag fitted with a plain round nozzle with the macaron mixture.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and pipe the macarons onto it. Don’t try to make a spiral shape; macarons are piped by holding your piping bag vertically, with the nozzle almost touching the tray, and pressing down continuously until you have the desired size (they will spread very slightly during baking). Stop pressing when the size is right and flick your wrist to cut the dough.
- Tap the baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes at 165 degrees Celsius on the convection setting.
- The macarons are done when their bases don’t move if you press them with your index finger in a repeated right-to-left motion. Let them cool completely before filling them.
Assembly:
- Once the macarons have cooled, whip the vanilla ganache like whipped cream so that you can pipe it onto half of the macaron shells (don’t go right to the edge, as the filling will spread when you press the shells together).
Sprinkle the whipped ganache with a final touch of vanilla using La Patelière intensely vanilla sugar and cover with the remaining shells.
Place in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours to allow the textures to evolve and the flavors to develop.
