The recipe for MACARONS, a typical French sweet made with egg white and almond flour, is very cute for its colors that allow it to adapt to any type of banquet, from the most elegant to the most fun and colorful. I want to give you a recommendation right away to prevent the color from fading too much during cooking and to keep it bright; I suggest adding it to the beaten egg white before adding the powders, because the moisture of the egg white will make the color vibrant and brilliant and it won’t be absorbed by the powders.
Macarons are, therefore, small meringues with added almond flour and can be filled with many different creams. The most used are frosting and ganache. Frosting is a cream based on spreadable cheese and whipped cream which are well suited to fillings because they have a consistency that can be worked with the piping bag, and in the refrigerator, they firm up well. On the other hand, ganache is simply prepared with whipped cream where we will melt the chocolate, and precisely because of its composition, it becomes a solid cream that keeps well at room temperature when cooling. The difference between using the three types of classic chocolate in preparing ganache lies simply in the proportions.
A small example for preparing ganache with the three types of classic chocolate:
– dark chocolate 100g of cream with 100g of chocolate
– milk chocolate 100g of cream with 175g of chocolate
– white chocolate 100g of cream with 225g of white chocolate.
Meringue is an excellent base for many recipes and can also be made without sugar
- Difficulty: Medium
- Cost: Medium
- Rest time: 1 Hour 3 Minutes
- Preparation time: 20 Minutes
- Portions: 30 complete macarons
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Energy 96.29 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 10.92 (g) of which sugars 10.65 (g)
- Proteins 1.29 (g)
- Fat 5.34 (g) of which saturated 1.40 (g)of which unsaturated 0.73 (g)
- Fibers 0.42 (g)
- Sodium 12.67 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 22 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients
For convenience, we will divide the ingredients to create the base of the macarons and the ingredients for the filling, remembering that the latter can be changed as you prefer based on various occasions.
- 3 oz egg white (room temperature and pasteurized)
- 2 tbsp granulated sugar
- to taste food coloring (preferably paste)
- 1 cup almond flour
- 1 1/4 cups powdered sugar
- 1/2 cup whipping cream (liquid)
- 8 oz white chocolate
Tools
It is very important to use a stand mixer or electric hand mixer to whip the egg whites, a sieve, and especially a silicone mat to bake them.
- 1 Stand Mixer
- 1 Sieve
- 2 Baking Mats
Steps
With the help of an electric hand mixer or stand mixer, whip the egg whites with granulated sugar until stiff peaks form. Still using the mixer, add the food coloring you prefer until you achieve the desired shade.
Sift the almond flour and powdered sugar; if you don’t have a sieve or don’t like using one, you can place both powders in a tall container and use a blender to mix well. You’ll see that the result will be the same.
Now, manually add the powders to the egg white using a wooden spoon or a whisk with decisive movements from bottom to top. Don’t worry if they deflate a bit; it helps avoid unsightly peaks on the surface of the macarons. Now that the batter is ready, use a piping bag with a round tip to create your “circles” on a silicone mat available in stores, or you can make them directly on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper; in this case, you need to be precise in forming macarons of equal size.
Now there’s a very important step: RESTING. Let your macarons rest for at least an hour; this will allow the typical macaron collar to develop in the oven. After this time, bake your macarons in a preheated oven at 300°F for 12 minutes, then turn off the oven and let them dry in the oven for another 3/4 minutes. Remove from the oven and let them cool well before filling.
You will see if your macarons are successful not only from the outer collar but also from the base, which should look like this. Do not turn them before they are completely cold; otherwise, due to their soft consistency inside, you might break them. As they cool, they will become crispy and crumbly on the outside and soft in the center.
When the macarons are well cooled, you can proceed with the filling. Having indicated a filling with white ganache, you can also keep them at room temperature.
I recommend preparing the ganache in advance, perhaps while your macarons are resting before being baked.
Preparing ganache is very easy; just bring the cream to a boil and pour it into a glass container where you have broken the chocolate. Stir to melt the chocolate well, and as it cools, it will acquire the right consistency to be worked with the piping bag.
The ganache can also be whipped with an electric mixer to make it more voluminous and cool it faster, but to fill the macarons, I recommend using it without whipping. For this, however, I advise preparing it in advance so it reaches the right consistency as it cools. If it cools too much, you can slightly heat it in the microwave.
NOTES
Macarons are excellent sweets that are perfect for gifting, perhaps packaged in paper boxes; they will be appreciated by adults and children.
They allow you to be colorful in many shades since they are a very neutral base and can adapt to any party. They can also be used to decorate spectacular cakes or cream tarts.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Can I grind almonds instead of using flour?
You can easily grind almonds to make flour as they are more easily available in the market. However, I recommend grinding them finely and passing them through a sieve.
Which food coloring can I use?
I recommend using paste colorings, as listed in the ingredients, which are very concentrated and easy to add without diluting the batter. Alternatively, powdered colorings can be used, which should be added to the egg white while it is being whipped with granulated sugar so that the moisture from the egg white makes them immediately vibrant without adding too much coloring.
Why is the final color always lighter than the batter?
During baking, the color tends to darken and dull; therefore, the final shade will definitely be a few tones lighter than the batter, and the exterior will be more opaque, while the moist interior will appear brighter.
