About 3 months ago, I made some Lemon and Blueberry Macarons for the birthday party of one of my nephews. My other nephew, who is a bit of a cookie monster, told me that I had to make them for his birthday party as well, and this weekend it was time. Since raspberry is my favorite flavor for macarons, that's what I did.
I decided that I would make them smaller than I usually do (I normally make them to big), which I did. The downside to this, was that it (obviously, in hindsight) changed the cooking time required, so the whole first batch were overcooked. Instead of a crispy outside with a chewy center, they were crispy all the way through...
So, start again. The first half of the second batch came out even more burnt than the first batch, and they were cracked besides. Turned out that I had set the oven to 175°C instead of, as it should be 125°C.
Once I figured all that out though, the second half of the second batch turned out beautifully. With this recipe, unlike with previous recipes that I've tried, all the macarons "popped up" and hardly any of them cracked in the oven. All in all, I'm very happy with the results, and I feel like I'll be able to reproduce them with this recipe.
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| Raspberry macarons |
Ingredients (80-100 "halves", ie 40-50 macarons):
Macarons:
165g Almonds
255g Powdered sugar
135g Egg whites
3 tbsp Caster sugar
Red food coloring (Optional)
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| Ingredients for the cookies |
Raspberry butter cream (You probably won't need all of it):
200g Butter
3 dl Powdered sugar
2 tsp Vanilla powder
1 Egg yolk
Raspberries (to taste, I used about 250g)
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| Ingredients for the raspberry butter cream |
For the macarons, we first need to peel and grate the almonds. If you like, you can buy peeled almonds, or even ready-made almond flour instead.
Assuming you have ordinary almonds, with the peel on, drop them into boiling water for about 1 minute, take them out and allow them to cool. Now peel them, the peel should pop right of. Let them sit for a couple of hours, preferably over night, to dry.
Grate the peeled almonds, my almond grater isn't fine enough for macarons, so after having grated them, I also run them through the food processor for a while. Pass the grated almonds and the powdered sugar through a fine mesh sieve and set aside.
Whisk the egg whites, starting slowly and then increasing the speed. Once it starts to become stiff, add in the caster sugar a little at a time. Keep whisking for a few minutes more, the egg whites should be stiff and shiny.
Add a few drops of red food coloring, the almonds and the powdered sugar, and fold together to a batter. It shouldn't be runny, but nor should it be too firm.
Pipe the mixture onto an oven tray covered with parchment paper, in round "blobs", about 4cm in diameter. Give the tray a couple of good bangs against the table, this should smooth them out a little and get rid of the "peak". Then allow them to rest for a full hour. This lets a coating form on top of the cookies, which keeps them from cracking in the oven, and gives you that ring on the bottom that means that they have "popped up".
Bake at 125°C, in the bottom of the oven, for about 20 minutes. If you can, GENTLY, lift them up from the tray in one piece, then you know that they are done. When you take them out, immediately remove the sheet of parchment paper with the cookies from the tray, and allow to cool.
Now for the raspberry butter cream, super easy and super delicious.
Place the raspberries in a pot and mush them up, then bring to the boil while stirring (I'm using frozen raspberries, but of course you can use fresh ones if you want). Strain the raspberry coolie to get rid of the seeds.
Whisk the butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla powder until white and fluffy. Add the egg yolk and the raspberry coolie and mix. Store in the fridge until it's time to assemble the macarons.
To assemble, pipe some butter cream on a cookie, and place another on top.
Below, the first 4 pictures are from batch 1, and the last 2 from batch 2, that's why there is a difference in shading. I decided that I liked a paler pink, rather than the almost neon of batch 1. Also, I didn't make any pictures for the butter cream, it's really simple.
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| Meringue |
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| Add the rest |
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| Mix well |
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| Not environmental, but easy |
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| Pre-bake |
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| Post-bake |
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