The Cutest Macarons
And they’re Gluten Free! For all the measurements, I weighed everything rather than do the cup sizes.
*Side note: I didn’t make the icing filling (it was a little too fiddly for me) but if you do, I’d love to know how it went.
INGREDIENTS:
100g Egg Whites at room temperature = 3 large eggs.
140g Almond Flour - or 1 1/2 cups
90g Granulated Sugar (I used caster sugar) = just under 1/2 cup
130g Icing Sugar (I used pure icing sugar as it’s GF - normal icing ‘mixture’ isn’t) - 1 cup
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/4 tsp Cream of Tarter
Pink colouring and a flavouring if you choose, such as strawberry or musk. Whatever takes your fancy.
BUTTERCREAM:
226G Unsalted Butter, softened = 1 cup
5 Egg Yokes (use the ones from earlier as well)
100g Granulated Sugar = 1/2 cup
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
3 Tbsp Water
1 Pinch of Salt
METHOD:
Macarons:
1. Sift the icing sugar and almond flour into a bowl.
2. Add the room temperature egg whites into a very clean bowl (they won’t whip up if there is any contamination).
3. With an electric mixer, whisk egg whites. As they start to foam, add the cream of tarter and then SLOWLY add the granulated (caster) sugar.
4. Add food colouring and flavouring (if you choose) and vanilla. beat until peaks form.
5. Stop beating, remove bowl and gently fold in 1/3 of the dry ingredients with a spatula. Repeat until all the dry ingredients are mixed in.
6. The mixture should look and act like flowing lava and be able to fall into a figure 8 in the bowl from the spoon, without breaking. Spoon into a piping bag with medium round piping tip.
7. Pipe 1 inch sized dollops onto baking paper on a flat tray. When piped, tap the counter with the tray several times to release air bubbles. Allow to sit for 40 minutes. Heat oven to 150 degrees C. Place in oven, cooking for 7 minutes, then ROTATE the tray, cooking for a further 5-8 minutes. You can gently touch the tops at the 12 minute mark. If they feel too soft, leave them a little longer.
8. Allow to cool completely on baking paper before gently rolling the paper backwards beneath the macaron. This way the bottoms are less likely to stick to the paper.
Buttercream:
1. Mix sugar and water in a medium saucepan. Heat over low temperature while stirring until sugar dissolves. Increase heat to medium-high and bring to the boil.
2. Put egg yolks in a bowl and mix with a whisk attachment. Beat until thick and creamy.
3. Cook sugar and water syrup until it reaches 115 degrees C. Immediately remove from heat and with the mixer running, SLOWLY drizzle hot syrup into the bowl with the yolks.
4. Continue mixing until the bottom of the bowl is cool to touch and the yolk mixture has cooled to room temperature.
5. Add in butter, one cube at a time, allowing each piece to incorporate before adding the next. Add vanilla and salt. continue mixing until buttercream is smooth and creamy (approx 5-6 minutes). Add food colouring if you’d like.
6. Pipe filling onto the back of a macaron and join with a second. Macarons should be aged in the fridge for 1-3 days for best results. This allows the filling to soften the shells inside.
Enjoy! We did. xo