Le Calabash’s African Chocolate Macaron, Step by Step

1. Stir the food colouring into the first quantity of aged egg whites and add this to the bowl of ground almonds and icing sugar but do not stir.

2. Add the meringue to the bowl of icing sugar and ground almonds, stir and then folded in the chocolate.

3. Mix well with a spatula, then work on the mixture with your spatula (macaronner) moving your spatula in small circles and going back and forwards to press out the oxygen from the whites. Do this for no more than a few minutes until you have a smooth mixture. The result should form a soft and brilliant mixture that forms a “ribbon” on the surface.

4. Transfer the mixture to a piping bag with a plain nozzle – No. 7. Pipe out the desired size of rounds pressing the nozzle down on the paper then finishing off with a flourish to obtain a nice round and leaving a space between each round as they do spread out.

5. Bake in the centre of the oven for 12 minutes, opening the oven twice at 8 and 10 mins to let out the steam.When ready leave on the baking tray until cool and then peel or scrape them off carefully with a palette knife.Marry up the discs in pairs one row flat side down and one row flat side up.