French Vanilla Buttercream Macaroons
150g ground almonds/almond flour 150g icing sugar 60g egg whites Food colouring of your choice Italian meringue: 150g caster sugar 40g water 50g egg white A few drops lemon juice Butter-cream filling: ½ cup butter 1½ cups icing sugar 30ml warm milk 1 tsp vanilla extract Sift the almond flour and icing sugar into a bowl and stir.
Weigh the egg whites and mix in food colouring of you choice if you like. Pour the egg whites into the almond and icing sugar and mix to a thick paste.
Italian meringue: Pour 40g of water into a small saucepan and add the caster sugar.
Cook over a medium heat until the sugar has dissolved and has reached 110°C (use an electric thermometer).
Start simultaneously beating the egg whites and lemon with a whisk attachment at medium speed for about 1 minute to break them up.
Then turn the mixer to high speed. The cooked sugar should be added to the beaten whites when they have reached stiff peaks.
Remove the sugar from the heat and pour into the egg whites while beating in a thin, steady stream.
The meringue should become glossy and silky.
Once all the sugar has been added, turn the speed of the mixer down and let the meringue cool to 50°C.
To finish the batter, stir a spoon of the meringue into the icing sugar and almond batter to loosen it.
Carefully fold the rest of the meringue into the batter, rotating the bowl in your hands as you stir. The batter should become glossy and have a ribbon-like consistency.
Spoon some of the batter carefully into a piping bag fitted with a 10mm nozzle. Position yourself about 2cm above the baking tray covered in a silicon or Teflon baking matt.
Gently squeeze the piping bag to squeeze out 2cm shells. Let the shells rest at room temperature for around 10 minutes before putting into the oven, pre-heated to 140°C.
Bake the shells for 15-16 minutes opening the oven door to release steam at 8 minutes and then again at 10.
As soon as you take the shells out of the oven, slide the silicon matt on to a cool work surface. Allow the shells to cool before carefully unsticking them, one at a time.
Butter cream icing: Mix the ingredients together. You can get creative with any number of fillings and flavours – edible dust, glitter or anything that suits your taste.
Once complete, your macaroons should have a crunchy exterior and a marshmallowy texture on the inside.
They are a lot of work and technical, but also delicious and rewarding.