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Pre-measured ingredients, materials, and a kitchen item used in the recipe
Recipe video tutorial
Macronage Tutorial Video
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Recipe
A few best practices before you start: 1) Once you start making the macarons, don’t stop. Allowing ingredients to rest at an improper time can cause problems. 2) Humidity is the enemy of macarons. Try to make macarons when it is not raining, and humidity is low.
How to make Raspberry and Orange French Macarons
Description
Two delicate, slightly chewy cookies filled with a creamy sweet filling.
Want to try making one of our recipes, but prefer to skip the ingredient shopping and measuring? Check out bakeeatlovebox.com - we ship pre-measured baking kits to your doorstep.
Raspberry and Orange Macarons
Cookies
Filling
Instructions
Cookies
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Sift confectioners sugar and almond flour into a large bowl. This will break up any clumps that have formed, giving your macarons a smooth surface. Place a little of both ingredients into your sifter. Hold it in one hand and tap it lightly with the other. Refill and repeat. Use a spoon to help break down larger pieces. In the end, you’ll have a few grams of almond flour that are too big to sift. Toss these so they don’t make your macarons bumpy. Set sifted ingredients aside.
Start with room temperature large eggs. Do not use extra-large eggs, small eggs, or beaters. You can set your eggs out to get to room temperature, place them in a cup or bowl of warm water for 5-10 minutes, or use aged egg whites. Separate egg whites and discard yolks. Ensure bowls/mixer are clean and dry and there is no yolk in the egg whites. A trace of yolk or grease can prevent eggs from whipping properly. Any water on your equipment can throw off the macarons’ delicate liquid to solid ratio. Using a stand mixer with the whisk attachment or electric hand mixer and medium bowl, beat egg whites on medium low until foamy.
Add sugar, salt and cream of tartar. Continue mixing on medium to medium high until stiff peaks form. Depending on your mixer, this could take 4-10 minutes. Stiff peaks are glossy and stand straight up.
Pour ⅓ of the sifted mixture into your egg whites. Gently fold 10-13 strokes with a sturdy rubber spatula or spoon using the macaronage technique (check out the video tutorial at the top for guidance). Scrape around the outside of the batter then cut through the middle. That’s one stroke. Cut through different directions of the bowl to mix thoroughly. Keep count of your strokes!
Repeat with another ⅓ of the mixture and 10-13 strokes. Repeat with the last ⅓. You should have 30-39 strokes.
As precisely as you can, place half of the batter into a medium bowl. Add orange gel dye and orange extract. Continue folding until you have 65 total strokes. Scoop some batter and as it falls, try to make a figure 8 without the dough breaking. If you can, your batter is ready. If you can’t, mix 3 more strokes and try again. Mix no more than 75 total strokes.
Cuff a piping bag over your non-dominant hand and fill with dominant hand. Do not cut the bag yet. Lay it flat.
Add burgundy dye and raspberry extract to your other macaron batter bowl and repeat steps 6 and 7. Prepare baking sheets. Use scissors to cut parchment paper to the size of your baking sheets. Not doing so can cause macarons to bake lopsided.
It is best to use a template when piping the macarons to ensure even spacing. Place the template under the parchment paper on the baking sheet. Snip the tip of the orange piping bag so you have a ½ inch hole. Pipe orange macarons onto the first piece of parchment paper. Hold piping bag ½ inch from the parchment paper. Pipe what look like big Hershey's kisses, keeping in mind the batter will expand as they sit. Refrain from piping swirls as this adds air bubbles. Avoid piping on parchment folds.
Right after piping, drop tray on the counter at least 5 times. You should see some air bubbles pop and others rise to the top. Manually pop air bubbles at the top with a toothpick. Inspect to ensure you pop them all! Turn tray and repeat this step. Repeat these steps for the raspberry macarons.
Before baking, allow macarons to rest for 30-60 minutes. This allows them to form a skin. When the first batch is ready to bake, they should not stick to your finger at all when touched lightly. Preheat oven to 300°F. If you know your oven runs hot or cold, adjust accordingly.
Bake macarons 17-20 minutes. Do not under bake or they will stick to the tray and the domes can collapse! Allow macarons to cool completely. Cool them near the oven as they are not fond of dramatic temperature changes.
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Filling
Using your stand mixer with the paddle attachment or electric hand mixer, cream butter until soft and smooth, 3-4 minutes. Add 155 grams confectioners sugar, vanilla extract, and milk. Mix until light and fluffy. Add to a piping bag. Snip ¼ inch hole in the bag and pipe swirls on half of the cookies. Sandwich cookies together and enjoy!
