Ispahan Macaron's - 4th of August 2013

My favorite macaron flavours are salted caramel and pistachio but it is fun to try new combinations now and again. One of the most talked about macarons are the Ispahan by Pierre Herme.. a delicate combination of Lychee, rose & raspberry. I decided to give it a try, following an adaptation of Pierre Herme's recipe.

I have included the adapted recipe below. I always use the same recipe for the macaron shells, from Adriano Zumba which work well for me. The recipe is already on my blog so below you will see the filling recipe only.

Ispahan Macaron

makes filling for about 30 macarons

For the raspberry jelly:
200gr raspberries
20gr caster sugar
1,5 leaf of gelatine


For the lychee and rose ganache:
200g white chocolate
200g lychees (preserved in syrup)
30g double cream
2g rose essence

To finish:
Silver dust

Start by preparing the raspberry jelly. Soak the gelatine leaves for 15 minutes in cold water to soften.

Using a hand blender, blend the raspberries and sugar to a purée. Strain the purée to remove the pips. Heat a quarter of the purée to 45°C. Drain and dry the gelatine and add to the hot purée. Stir and add the rest of the raspberry purée.

Pour it into a gratin dish lined with clingfilm up to a depth of 4mm. Allow to cool for 1 hour at room temperature then put the dish in the freezer for 2 hours. Turn out the jelly and cut it into 1.5cm squares. Return the jelly squares to the freezer.

For the lychee and rose ganache. Drain the lychees well (squeeze out as much of the liquid as you can). Blend then strain them to obtain a fine purée. You will need 100g purée. Chop up the chocolate and melt it in a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water.
Pour the ganache into a gratin dish and press clingfilm over the surface of the ganache. Set aside in the fridge for the ganache to thicken.

Spoon the ganache into a piping bag fitted with a plain nozzle. Pipe a mound of ganache on to half the shells. Lightly press a square of frozen jelly into the center and finish with a dot of ganache. Top with the remaining shells. Use a brush to lightly swipe the top shell with some silver dust. Cover and chill for 24 hours.