Confession time:
Is there such a thing as a salted brown sugar macaron? Probably not. It was something I had to come up with because I made a big booboo. I was meant to make salted caramel buttercream to sandwich my macarons, but it all went horribly wrong when I decided to go with the flow off the caramel instead of following the recipe. My caramel turned rock hard! What a disaster. Here’s some advice, if you’re making caramel FOLLOW THE RECIPE! Having to think quickly, I decided that since the brown sugar was out (used it in the caramel) I may as well use it in the macarons. Brown sugar is sweet and moist and has a toffee like flavour. Closest substitute I was going to get for caramel at that moment. And to my surprise they turned out quite well.
This was a new macaron recipe that I tried. I must warn you: TRY AT YOUR OWN RISK. This batch turned out well, but the 3 batches I tried after this flopped miserably. It was really disheartening for me, I haven’t flopped macarons since I started making them and I’ve made so many batches since then. I’ll admit my macarons are never 100% perfect, but I’ve never had them completely fail on me like those 3 batches did. Here you go, hope they work better for you, if you do try them, please let me know how they turn out. (EDIT: It wasn’t the recipe, it was my oven (they can be so temperamental), I’ve now learnt how to best use my oven for macarons, so please give this recipe a go) Or you could try my pistachio macarons.
Ingredients
makes 10-12 sandwiched macarons
35 g egg white (the whites from 1 large egg)
60 g icing sugar
35 almond meal
20 g sugar
Ideally you want to age your egg whites for a few days, but if you don’t have the time, try to use eggs that have been lying around for a while instead of fresh and make sure they are at room temperature. Measure out your almond meal and icing sugar, grind these to a fine powder and sift into a bowl. Measure out your sugar and keep aside. Weigh your egg white and whip with a stand or hand mixer. Once the egg white becomes frothy, begin to add your sugar in a slow stream until the egg whites turn stiff and glossy.
Gently fold 1/3 of your egg whipped egg whites into your almond meal and icing sugar mixture. Fold until nearly combined, fold in the rest of the egg whites until it’s just combined, once combined there’e no need to mix/fold any more, this can cause the batter to be over mixed and this may cause issues for the final product.
Fill mixture into a piping bag and pipe onto baking paper lined baking trays. You want the mixture to be piped into 2/2.5cm diameter rounds. Gently but firmly knock the tray against the table to remove any air bubbles. Leave the macarons for half an hour or more on the counter to form a skin.You know the skin is formed, when you are able to touch the macaron without it sticking to your finger. Pre heat oven to 150C and bake for 15 mins.
Salted Brown Sugar Buttercream
1/4 cup salted butter
1 cup sifted icing sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 tsp fine salt (be careful with the salt, taste as you go, you really don’t want to end up with an over salty macaron filling)
Cream butter, icing sugar and vanilla until fluffy. Add salt and brown sugar and beat until combined. I didn’t over beat the mixture at this point as I liked the speckled brown sugar effect. But if you prefer you can continue to beat the mixture which will cause the brown sugar to dissolve into the buttercream.
Enjoy my brown sugar macarons, I guess good things can come out of kitchen disasters after all!
[…] more. Pre heat oven to 150C and bake for 15 mins. For a more detailed explanation, check out this post. Creme Patissiere (thick […]