Starry Night Macarons

Starry Night 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.

A few things: I’m actually only going to give you the recipe for 10 macarons. I scaled it up by 2.5x to have enough macarons for this. Also, I suck at ganaches. I always split them so maybe following my recipe for that isn’t the best. I think my issue is that the cream is too hot when I add it to the white chocolate. Just a head’s up. (Normally recipes will tell you heat up cream and pour that over chopped up chocolate.)

1. Macaron Shells: For about 10 1.5 inch macarons:

  • 46 g almond flour (sift, no big almond pieces)
  • 43 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.
    Fold about half your dry ingredients into the meringue until just incorporated and then add the rest and continue folding until just incorporated. Now would be the time to add food coloring. Gel or powder, not liquid. 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 into a piping bag with a tip.
  4. Pipe out your macarons. 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 9 minutes at 315 and drop to 300 for another 9 minutes. (The macarons worked out well using these parameters, but all ovens are different, so you have to do a bit of your own troubleshooting >.<)

2. Horchata Rose Ganache

  • 60 g white chocolate
  • 30 g heavy cream
  • a few dashes of rose water
  • a few dashes of horchata extract
  1. First of all, yes I know the horchata extract (vs legit horchata) is a sell out. But I had it, so I used it :p.
  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. Heat cream, rose water, and horchata extact in a small saucepan until it reduces to about 20ish ml. If you wanted to use some horchata mixure that would also work. (for my 25 macarons, I used 125 g white chocolate and 40 g cream I think..but ran out at the end and had to fill some very skimpily).
  4. Let cream cool a bit and then add into the white chocolate mixture.
  5. Fold together and transfer to a piping bag and chill for a short while to firm up before piping onto the macaron shells.

Notes on Painting:

  1. I used normal Americolor gel food coloring and a paint brush set I use for desserts. I used a big plate as a palette.
  2. My diluent was vodka because it evaporates quickly and causes it to be less sticky than if you use water.
  3. Check out http://imgur.com/a/GLCu9 for progress pictures. You can sort of get a sense of what I did.
  4. I made a template for how I wanted to set it up on Photoshop. This served as my “grid” as a painted them.
         
  5. I started with a base coat on lots of them with a diluted food coloring. Then went back using less diluted food coloring to make brush strokes.
         

Overall, was pretty, but a lot of work. As a one off thing, this is pretty chill, but I would never wish this pain upon someone doing this on a regular basis :p.
If anything, make the macarons because they’re tasty!

Gluck!
-Mario

comments powered by Disqus