Chocolate Macarons with Dulce de Leche filling

Mistakes are delicious. I've learned this through many screwed up recipes that my family nonetheless devoured, complimented, and that I found myself eating and loving too.

P.S. If your macarons crack or are hard or don't have feet or bubble or fuse or whatever it is you think is imperfect, other people are just so impressed that you even attempted macarons. It's all about appreciating that someone took the risk and cares, not the aesthetics of the product. And it means that next time you can try again to make it better!

P.P.S. This applies to mistakes in life too.

These are lumpy, brown, cracked, and taste fantastic, especially when they've been in the fridge for 5 days.

They also pair fantastically with homemade chocolate ice cream (post soon!), which, as a bonus, uses up the 5 yolks you will have sitting in your kitchen after trying your hand at macarons.

My first time making dulce de leche was a roaring success! If you haven't tasted it....well, it's one of those life experiences you should just do. 978 things to do before you die:
583. Eat dulce de leche off a spoon
584. Eat something that has dulce de leche in it.

It's basically sweetened condensed milk that you heat to caramelize the sugars. You can heat in the microwave, directly in the can in boiling water (but people worry about chemicals from the can leeching in so this might not be the best way, although it is the most popular in the blogosphere), in the oven in a pie plate, or, like I did, on a double boiler. See instructions here.

Or you can buy it at the store, too.

Did you know the French have dulce de leche too? They call it confit de lait, which translates as milk jam. And they spread it on toast. That is a good life choice.

Love yourself and your cracked crunchy macarons, and eat some dulce de leche.

Chocolate Macarons with Dulce de Leche filling

Ingredients:

4 ounces blanched almonds or almond flour, or whatever nut you like
7 ounces powdered sugar
1 ounce cocoa powder
2 teaspoons espresso powder (optional but delicious)
5 ounces egg whites (144g)
2 1/2 ounces sugar
the scrapings of 1 vanilla bean or 2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp (2g) kosher salt

Method:

1. Bravetart has a fantastic recipe and explanations of how to achieve macronage (which, I think, was what went wrong with my macarons this time...I overbeat the batter)
2. Fill macaron shells with dulce de leche (don't worry if it splurts out, it probably will), sandwich, and enjoy.