These delightfully pale macarons were inspired by the opéra cake, a cake made popular by the well-known Dalloyau Parisian pâtisserie more than 50 years ago.

The opéra cake, or Clichy cake (named after Louis Clichy who supposedly created this cake), is an elegant mulit-layered cake made up of several thin layers of joconde (an almond sponge cake), a layer or two of coffee buttercream, a layer of chocolate ganache and a topping of chocolate glaze.

Since macarons have at least 2 similar components (almonds, buttercream or chocolate ganache) to the classic opéra, I though it would be an interesting experiment to “port” the combination of flavours in the cake to macarons.

For the shells I experimented with ground hazelnuts, which have a much stronger flavour than almonds. I especially love the contrast of the tiny flecks of dark brown hazelnut skin against the pale creamy colour of the shells. The macarons were then sandwiched with an expresso-flavoured italian meringue buttercream and a chocolate ganache centre.

The resulting macaron was a wonderful combination of flavours and textures - nutty & chewy hazelnut macarons, aromatic & fluffy expresso buttercream and decadently rich dark chocolate ganache. Wildly addictive, even for a non-coffee drinker like me!

[Latest Update: 1 May 2007] Available for Purchase: 1.5″ - 2″ macarons @ S$2.00 each (min purchase of 28 macarons, choice of 3 flavours per order of 28). Please see this post for other flavours or click here. Gift box packaging available @ a nominal cost.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 13th, 2007 at 2:10 pm and is filed under Macarons, Take Me Home, Cookies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.