French Macaron Baking Adventures, Part 2: More Macarons + Strawberry Buttercream Filling Recipe

 

By Lisa Maliga, copyright 2016

The macaron baking saga continues as I want to test the King Arthur “super finely ground” almond flour I’d found for a dollar less at Walmart. I also wanted to try a strawberry buttercream filling because I love strawberries and the idea of a buttercream filling seemed decadent to me. I’d written about them in my books but in fact had never made buttercream frosting/filling from scratch. I’ve used containers of Duncan Hines and Betty Crocker frosting. Well, they weren’t actually buttercream, they were called frosting, had a long shelf life, were always at room temperature, and were spread with a knife. At least in my experience they were. While all frostings or buttercreams contain high amounts of sugar, the store-bought variety had vegetable shortening instead of butter so they didn’t contain butter or cream.

At first, I thought the super finely ground almond flour only needed to be sifted with the powdered sugar. Wrong! I ended up sifting it twice. I left the two eggs out overnight, thinking I’d separate them before I made the macarons. When separating the whites from the yolks, some of the yolk dropped into the egg white bowl. Macaron baking experts declared that a NO as fat wasn’t good for macs. So I scrounged around online until I found a website where the author claimed an egg could be aged in the microwave for ten seconds.

Most eggs contain a high percentage of water in the whites. When aged, extra water evaporates. Separate the white from the yolk and cover with cling wrap with a small slit to allow for evaporation, then place in the refrigerator for 24-36 hours. You can also leave it out overnight or for about 12 hours if the bowl is covered with a paper towel. The eggs must be room temperature if you want them to whip into a fluffy meringue.

This was my worst batch yet, due to the egg problem. The egg didn’t age or do anything other than maybe warm up a bit. Unlike the sunny day where I made my first batch, the weather had gone from early morning sunshine to mid-afternoon humidity and rain. It was a challenging four hours due to:

* Waiting 90 minutes for the shells to dry

* Undermixing the batter

* Clumsy piping of the batter

* Forgetting to remove the paper templates from the baking sheet [see 2 photos below]

* NO feet

On the bright side:

* 1 more drop of coloring made the magenta even brighter

* Remembering to make a cuff with the pastry bag

* Lowering the temperature of the oven

* Making the best strawberry buttercream filling I’d ever tasted

* Able to pipe the buttercream filling onto the macarons

Strawberry Buttercream Filling Recipe

¼ cup room temperature Unsalted butter [use a high-quality brand like President or Kerry Gold]

1 ½ cups powdered sugar

2 Tablespoons heavy cream

4 Tablespoons high quality strawberry jam

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract OR vanilla bean paste

I want to emphasize the importance of using the best and highest quality ingredients in your buttercream filling as you will taste them! If you can use fresh strawberries or strawberry jam/spread that you’ve made, that would be excellent. I used a fruit spread that was sweetened with natural fruit juice and fruit pectin. There are many high quality types available in your grocery store, health food store, farmers market, etc. that DON’T contain high fructose corn syrup.

Here’s a list of preferred ingredients: strawberries, sugar, cane sugar, concentrated lemon juice, and fruit pectin.

INSTRUCTIONS: If using a stand mixer, add the butter to the bowl and mix for about 30 seconds, and then add half the powdered sugar.

If using a hand mixer, make sure you have a LARGE bowl and mix the butter first, then add half the sugar.

When the mixture is smooth, add your wet ingredients: cream, jam and vanilla. Once mixed, it’s time to add the remaining powdered sugar.

The mixture should be smooth and firm but not too firm that it would crush the delicate macaron shells.

If you pipe onto the shells, it’s recommended that you use a large, plain tip, Wilton size 10.

Start by piping in the center and doing a swirl until you reach near the edges but not right at the edges. You don’t want to overfill them and make a mess with leaking buttercream filling. Gently adding the top shell and giving it a twist of about a quarter turn is an easy way to make sure the shells are nicely lined up.

NEXT WEEK: More adventures in macaron baking! I test my first batch of chocolate macarons with chocolate ganache filling!

Want to read more about baking macarons? Check out my book BAKING FRENCH MACARONS: A BEGINNER'S GUIDE.

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