Bake-a-Byte: Lemon-Blueberry Macarons

I realize it hasn't been a very long time since I last made macarons, although with a different flavour, but they seem to be the sort of thing that you want to perfect. Unfortunately, they are notorious for being difficult to perfect, but I'm giving it another go anyway.

The result this time was better than the last time, I got a nice smooth surface and they "popped up" nicely. The downside was that a fair few of the cookies cracked, maybe next time I will let them rest a bit longer before putting them in the oven. I also learned that overcrowding the oven-tray is a bad idea. Still, the once that didn't crack were near-perfect, so progress.

Strictly speaking these are not "lemon-blueberry macarons", but lemon macarons with a blueberry butter-cream.

Lemon macaron with blueberry filling

Ingredients (about 60 "halves", ie 30 macarons):

Macarons:
4 egg whites
0,5 dl caster sugar
4 dl powdered sugar
150g peeled almonds
2 tsp yellow food coloring
2 tsp lemon aroma

Ingredients for the macaron cookies

Blueberry butter cream:
150g room temperature butter
2,25 dl powdered sugar
1,5 tsp. vanilla sugar
1 egg yoke
A couple of handfuls of blueberries

Ingredients for the blueberry butter cream

Start by making the macarons.

The first thing to do is to peel and grate the almonds (unless you feel lazy and buy ones that are already peeled). Blanch the almonds in boiling water for about 1.5 minutes to loosen the peel, then strain, let cool, and peel (the skin should pop right off). Allow them to dry for at least a couple of hours, preferably over night. Once they are dry, grate the peeled almonds. Put the grated almonds in a food processor, with the chopping attachment, in order to get them really fine. Ideally, they should be fine enough to pass through a sieve.

Whisk the egg whites to a medium peak, meaning the egg whites should be firm, but not quite all the way to as firm as it can be. Add the sugar, a little at a time, while continuing to whisk. Keep whisking for another couple of minutes, until the meringue is stiff and shiny.

Add the food coloring and lemon aroma, sieve the powdered sugar and almonds into the meringue, and gently fold it in with a flexible spatula. Keep folding the mixture until the ingredients are mixed through and the consistency is right, it should still have some firmness, but starting to get a little bit runny.

Pipe the mixture onto an oven tray covered with parchment paper, in round "blobs", about 4cm in diameter, leaving at least 3cm between the cookies. Give the tray a couple of good bangs against the table, this should smooth them out a little and get rid of (or at least lessen) the "peak". Then allow them to rest for at least 30 minutes (60, or more, is even better). This lets a coating form on top of the cookies, which keeps them from cracking in the oven, and (hopefully) gives you that ring on the bottom that means that they have "popped up". You can check by touching them, they should be a lot less sticky.

Bake at 150°C, in the bottom of the oven, for 20-25 minutes. When you take them out, immediately remove the sheet of parchment paper with the cookies from the tray, and allow to cool.

While the cookies are baking, we can make our blueberry butter cream.

Place the blueberries in a pot and mush them up, then bring to the boil while stirring (I'm using frozen blueberries, but of course you can use fresh ones if you want). Strain the blueberry coolie to get rid of the skins.

Whisk the butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla sugar until white and fluffy. Add the blueberry coolie, to taste, a little at a time, while whisking vigorously. DO NOT add all of it at once as it will split, I made this mistake and had to start again. 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.