Macarons with Lemon Curd Buttercream

From reading other blogs, it seems that creating good macarons is a culinary achievement.  I'm all about achievement of any kind, but like other perfectionists I'm sometimes reluctant to try something I don't think I'm going to be good at.  Case in point: macarons.

I'm going to share with you my first and second attempt at these fussy little treats.  You'll see that I still don't have it down to a science, but my family isn't minding this whole practice-makes-perfect mentality.  They loved the first batch, pointy tops and all.  The second batch--with its crazy good lemon curd buttercream filling--is even better.

First, let me say you might not have every ingredient and tool for macarons in your kitchen, unless you regularly stock a lot of almonds, or almond flour.  Friends, almond flour is not cheap.  This little bag cost about $10 at my local grocery.

The almond flour gets blended with powdered sugar in a food processor, and then sifted into another bowl.  Sifting is fussy. 

You might also end up with these bigger pieces like I did.  I just threw them into the bowl after everything else was sifted, and nothing catastrophic happened.  I'd go with that!

You might also not own a macaron template with perfect circles to slide under your parchment paper.  I improvised, as many bloggers recommended, and traced 1 1/2" circles onto one side of parchment paper, then flipped the paper over on my cookie sheet to provide a guide for sizing.  My son Izaak 'volunteered' to trace circles for me.  I paid him in frosting; he got to lick the beaters.  In a family of four kids, that's a coveted treat!

You probably do have eggs, though.  Egg whites get beaten, and beaten, and beaten with some sugar until they are glossy and clump on the whisk.

 

Here comes the hard part.  At least it was the hard part for me.  That almond flour-powdered sugar mixture gets blended into the egg whites but NOT in a mixer or with beaters.  By hand.  Carefully.  

Unlike an angelfood cake, it's ok to deflate the egg whites while mixing, but what's NOT ok is overbeating the mixture because it will cause the macaron shells to be tough.  In the recipe I followed, the blogger instructed that about 50 strokes of the spatula was all a baker should take if they wanted to avoid that point-of-no-return.  Being a rule follower, I counted 50 strokes and stopped.  My batter didn't run off the spatula like other bloggers indicated it should--in a heavy 'ribbon' of batter--but I didn't want to toughen up the macaron shells.  What happened?  After I piped the batter into my circles, they each had a little peak. 

 I read that peak would flatten as the macarons cooked, but no.  Not so much.  My pretty light blue shells got ugly brown, too, but that's a lesson for another day.

The problem was I didn't mix my batter enough.  It was too stiff, didn't run off the spatula in a thick ribbon, and didn't flatten out while baking.  I had to cut off the tips on half of them when I frosted them so they would sit upright, and not look like tops.

The truth?  My family thought they were fantastic.  I filled them with ganache and ate all those little tips.  They ate everything else and asked for more.  So this time around, I blended the egg whites and flour more than 50 strokes until the batter did make a ribbon.  I found that if I stopped at 50 strokes, then let the batter rest a minute or two, then mixed a few more strokes, then let the batter rest, it relaxed a little on its own.  Lesson here = mix until the batter begins to form a ribbon when poured but not one mix stroke more.

The more liquid batter did cause an unexpected problem, though.  When I piped the circles I did as instructed and held the tip of the piping bag in the center of the circle and squeezed until the batter filled the circle of the template (instead of swirling the batter around the circle).  They looked great, until I realized that they flattened a little, which caused the batter to go outside the circles and some of the batter started touching.  Argh.

Lesson = underfill the circles just a little bit, because they'll flatten out a bit.

A big sign of a well-cooked macaron is that it develops "feet", or a raised crust area at the bottom of each shell after it has been cooked.  I was so excited to see those feet on both batches.

I took them out at the early end of the suggested cooking time because the feet appeared, and I didn't want them to brown like my first batch did.  Macaron shells cool quickly, and I was anxious to frost these puppies.  My lemon curd had set beautifully, and when I added the powdered sugar to make it lemon curd buttercream my eyes almost crossed it was so good.  I love frosting.

I flipped half of the macaron shells over to pipe frosting on them, when I discovered another 'opportunity for growth' (i.e. mistake).  Even though I had read that I should cook one pan of these at a time, my time was short today and I just put both pans in.  Combine that with the shorter cooking time, and some of the shells cooked through beautifully and came right off the parchment...

while shells were underdone and stuck to the parchment.  I had to try to slide them off by running a knife under them.

Fortunately the tops still looked great, and when I frosted them, I had to gloat a little bit.

They turned out so pretty!  I even stacked them in a little tower, because all of the other successful macaron bloggers stacked their macarons in towers.

Sadly, these guys are supposed to sit for 24 hours in the refrigerator before you eat them.  Fussy, right?  But so far, they're worth the trouble!

  
For the recipe and instructions for macarons, be like me and go to Bake at 350.  Bridget (unknowingly) taught me how to make them, and with the tips I just shared, you should be ready to make macarons on your own.  The recipe for the lemon curd buttercream is below!

Lemon Curd Buttercream
Adapted from A Baked Creation blog

3 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
fresh lemon juice from a small lemon (about 1/4 cup)
zest of one small lemon
1/2 cup butter (one stick), cut into tablespoon sized pieces.
1 cup powdered sugar

Fill a saucepan with about 2 inches of water and set to boil on stovetop.  In a heat-proof mixing bowl, whisk egg yolks, sugar, zest and lemon juice until well combined.  Place bowl on top of the saucepan, creating a double-boiler.  Cook the curd mixture, frequently scraping and mixing with a spatula, for about 10 minutes.  Turn off heat, and add in butter.  Continue to stir until butter is entirely melted and incorporated.  Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until cold.  When you are ready, beat powdered sugar into the cold curd.  Done!  To use as filling for macarons, fill a piping bag with the frosting.  Snip off the end of the bag, or use a piping tip.  Squeeze frosting into the center of a macaron shell, being careful not to use so much frosting that it oozes out of the sides of the cookie.  You want just enough so when you gently press the two shells together, the frosting fills the circumference of the shells.  And looks pretty.  Of course!