Raspberry Macarons

UPDATE 2019 I now use 55 g almond flour, 50 g powdered sugar, 45 g egg whites, 45 g granulated sugar and bake for 25 min at 285F.

Update Jan 2020, lately I’ve been doing 305F for 20min. once again you just nead to learn your oven (going to leave this recipe at 285 though). See my notes in my General Macarons Recipe for the most up to date.

Swirls are so pretty. I always saw Macarons by Tiffany use them, so I wanted to try!
This macaron recipe was a work in progress, so see my latest macaron post for my new base recipe.

1. Macaron Shells: For about 10 1.5 inch macarons

• 46 g almond flour (sift, no big almond pieces)
• 42 g powdered sugar
• 35 g egg whites (room temp)
• 25 g granulated sugar

1. Oven to 325F. Measure out and sift your powdered sugar and almond flour. Whisk together and set aside.
2. Make your meringue. I speed warm up my egg whites by putting them in a small container and then putting that container in a bowl with hot water. Takes about 5 min to bring up the temp and doesn’t cook them.
   Beat/ whisk your egg whites until frothy and start to incorporate the granulated sugar a bit a time. Beat until stiff peaks.
3. Macaronage. Look up on Youtube if you’re unfamiliar on how to do so.
   • For this batter you want to split the batter in two as soon as the ingredients are incorporated. Fold about half your dry ingredients into the meringue until just incorporated and then add the rest and continue folding until just incorporated.
   • Split the batter into two and add food gel food coloring. Individually, fold until you get a lava like consistency. Fold by scraping along the edge of the bowl to deflate the meringue a bit and then scooping the batter. Repeat. You should be able to pick up the spatula and have the batter fall down in a ribbon. The ribbon should incorporate back into the main blob after about 10ish seconds. If it doesn’t fall correctly, I do a few more folds.
   • Put each batter into its own piping bag with no tip. Then put these two bags into a singular bag with a tip (so a bag with a tip containing two bags of different color macaron batters).
4. Pipe out your macarons. I treat this like any normal bag of macaron batter. When you squeeze from the top, both colors will incorporate into the tip and then when you lift up, exaggerate the swirl you do at the end (you normally do a little one to avoid those little bumps). I use a silpat (would highly recommend). Rap the baking sheet against the table a few times. Pop any air bubbles with a toothpick and swirl the toothpick around a bit to have that hole close up.
5. I hate waiting for the shells to dry, so I cheat and dry the shells using the oven heat. I do this by opening the oven and holding the tray in the oven, rotating it every 10 seconds or so for about a minute. My hands usually get hot at that point. I take them out for about a minute. Then back in again, rotating, for another 30 seconds. This quickly dries out the shells and makes a skin without having to wait 30 minutes at room temp (especially if it’s humid!) :p.
   You want to be able to touch the shell and have it not be sticky. Make sure it doesn’t shine and you’re probably good to go.
6. Bake for 10 minutes at 325 and drop to 300 for another 5-10 minutes.

2. Raspberry Ganache

• 25 g raspberry puree
• 70 g white chocolate

1. So normally I also add a bit of cream, but was lazy (recurring theme) and didn’t. It still turned out fine.
2. Put the white chocolate over a double boiler and mostly melt. Take off double boiler when there are a few unmelted pieces remaining.
3. Puree raspberries and then sieve out the seeds. Heat in a small saucepan until it warms up a little.
4. Add the raspberry puree to the white chocolate and fold together until incorporated.
5. Transfer to a piping bag and chill it in the fridge or freezer for a short while to firm up before piping onto the macaron shells.
6. After piping, let the macarons rest in an airtight container in the fridge overnight for optimal chewiness!
   Gluck!
   -Mario