pierre herme's macarons- tout paris.

This is my what, third, macaron post in a row already. I'm telling ya, they're addictive.

These tout paris macarons have a chocolate caramel ganache and a chocolaty rice krispie square sandwiched between each pair.

The chocolate caramel ganache was such a pain. After stirring the caramel into the chocolate, it started to seize up and turn grainy. I put more elbow grease in it and horror of horrors, the caramel started to separate from the ganache. I tried to work it in again as best as I could, including reheating the mixture but nope. Nada. Nothing worked. Finally, I thought of using a blender but even that failed me.

The ganache ended up being something more like a chocolate taffy- pliable and shiny. I was seriously doubtful that something that can be used as play dough would taste good. But hey, surprise! It wasn't chewy at all and the caramel gave a nice depth to the ganache. I adored the crunchy chunk of rice krispies in the middle. The only problem is, I had to let the macarons mature longer due to the low moisture content in the ganache, 2 days instead of 1.

And it's worth every minute.