Raspberry Mousse Macarons

I ended up making these macarons for Greg's party too, as someone wasn't sure people would like the Cardamom ones.

I tried a new recipe, from my book Secrets of Macarons' for the shells which was pretty much the same as the last recipe only seemed to possibly have tant pour tant (the mixture of almond meal and icing sugar) as they were actually in equal quantities.

Hesitantly, I did lessen the amount of caster sugar in the syrup - not sure what difference if might have made - but I'll give you the real amount. I also unfortunatley had to use almond meal that had dark bit of almond skin in it which gave the shells a bit of a 'wholemeal' look making them not quite as pretty as they could have been...

For the shells:

100 g almond meal

100 g pure icing sugar

80 g egg white

90 g caster sugar

75 ml water

Food colouring

Lemon zest

Whisk egg white into soft peaks, then add a few drops of colour.

In a small saucepan gently boil caster sugar and water until it reaches 115C.

While continueing to whisk the egg whites, slowly pour in the hot sugar - continue wisking for 5-10 minutes or until the mixture cools.

Gently fold in the TPT and zest of one lemon.

Pipe batter onto lined trays, rest for 1 - 2 hours then bake at 145C for 15 minutes.

Allow to cool completely before removing shells from paper.

For the mousse:

Make a firm raspberry jelly using 1 cup frozen raspberries, juice of 1 lemon and gelatin or agar.

Make a basic buttercream from egg yolks, hot sugar syrup, butter and zest (instructions here - just leave out all things orange and add a nice amount of lemon zest).

Mash up the jelly with a fork then whisk it into the buttercream - presto! Raspberry mousse - ok not really, but it's a similar texture.

Yummo... these just might be the favourite.