Yes, that’s right – today is officially “World Nutella Day” – what a beautiful holiday…although, for some reason hubby and I were not given the day off. Jeez. Some people have no respect for food!  And in case you’re thinking, “huh? there are food holidays?” , allow me to take a moment to fill you in on some of the delicious food-related holidays: there’s National Maple Syrup Day, Bologna Day, I believe there’s a whole month set aside for Grilled Cheese, National Ice Cream Day…there’s a ton of ’em!  So anyway, back to Nutella- for those of you who are unfortunate enough to never have had the stuff, Nutella is sort of like the peanut butter of Europe, so to speak. It’s smooth and chocolatey, with a nutty flavor and it’s devine spread on bread, cookies, stuffed into pastries…all kinds of delicious possibilities.

When I was in college, I was lucky enough to go to Germany and Austria with my choir and tour. That’s where I first discovered my love for Nutella. They serve it for breakfast over there – they have all kinds of breads, deli meats and cheeses, jams, fruit…..and Nutella. And that’s where it began – every single morning, I would grab a baguette and tons of little travel size packs of Nutella and that was breakfast. Still one of my favorite snacks. A year or so later, still in college, when I was learning German, my teacher gave me a little tip – “yes, its good on bread, but its even better if you toast the bread first, then butter it and THEN spread the Nutella, that’s what I do!” And that was all she had to say. Four years later and I still eat my Nutella that way.

So anyway, I guess it’s lucky that a couple of weeks ago, when my good buddy Jessica came to visit Joel and me, we decided to make these French Macarons….filled with none other than Nutella!

(That’s her on the left…isn’t she pretty?) By the way, Jess is celebrating World Nutella Day today as well – check out her Palmiers! AND – if you want to see our French Macarons from her perspective, visit her lovely blog – My Baking Heart.  Ok, ok, enough of that – onto the Macarons! I had always wanted to make these, after seeing them countless times on some of my favorite food blogs, but I always thought they’d be too hard for the likes of me. So when Jessica came, I thought it might be a fun idea to try them together – and I could surely use the extra expertise! Normally, these call for ground almonds, but all I had was pecans (which is while they’re all bumpy!), so we thought we’d make them “Southern Pecan Macarons”.  Genius. You know, there’s a reason us girls have our own blogs. Smarts, my friend, smarts.

These were surprisingly easy to make – the hardest part was walking away and letting them “rest” for 2 hours (I’m an impatient girl), but other than that, we had these babies done in no time! And boy are they tasty- Nutella worked as a perfect filling! Nom, nom, nom!

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Macarons,  click here to learn all about them and see what they normally look like. And here’s the recipe:

French Macarons
-David Lebovitz

1 cup (100 gr) powdered sugar
½ cup powdered almonds (about 2 ounces , 50 gr, sliced almonds, pulverized)
2 large egg whites, at room temperature
5 tablespoons (65 gr) granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and have a pastry bag with a plain tip ready (or in our case, a ziploc bag with the tip cut out).
Grind together the powdered sugar with the almond powder so there are no lumps; use a blender or food processor since almond meal that you buy isn’t quite fine enough.
In the bowl of a standing electric mixer, beat the egg whites until they begin to rise and hold their shape. While whipping, beat in the granulated sugar until very stiff and firm, about 2 minutes.
Carefully fold the dry ingredients, in two batches, into the beaten egg whites with a flexible rubber spatula. When the mixture is just smooth and there are no streaks of egg white, stop folding and scrape the batter into the pastry bag (standing the bag in a tall glass helps if you’re alone).
Pipe the batter on the parchment-lined baking sheets in 1-inch (3 cm) circles (about 1 tablespoon each of batter), evenly spaced one-inch (3 cm) apart. Let sit out on the counter for 1-2 hours until they form a “skin”.
Bake them for 10-12 minutes. Let cool completely then remove from baking sheet. Fill with filling and sandwich cookies together.

Eat and ENJOY! (I’m probably going to hate myself tomorrow for posting that picture….) HAPPY WORLD NUTELLA DAY!!! ~Amy

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