S'mores Macarons

Hey guys! I'm still out of town for a wedding but I had to pop in to share with you these s'mores macarons. Just in time for National S'mores Day! Yes, there is a whole day dedicated to celebrating s'mores. I won't complain considering my love for them :)

These macarons were a product of my s'more addiction a few weeks ago that lead to these s'more cookie bars. You know I love macarons (here and here) but they are so finicking that I am making them less now. But these were a success on the first try and the second!

I made graham cracker macarons and filled them with marshmallow creme and chocolate frosting. I may have over piped the chocolate frosting and marshmallow filling (sorry but not sorry).  I loved how puffy these little sandwiches turned out. They were perfectly crunchy and sweet and they tasted just like a traditional s'more! If you need a twist on the traditional s'more, then you need to try these. They make for a pretty display too at any summer event :)

I hope you all have a great weekend!!


S'more Macarons
Yield: 30 macarons
(Inspired by Chocolate & Carrots)

Ingredients:
3 egg whites
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup graham cracker crust
2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup almond meal

Marshmallow frosting

1/2 cup powdered confectioners’ sugar, sifted

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature

½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup Marshmallow Fluff (~half of the 7.5oz jar)

Chocolate frosting

Directions:

Line two sheet pans with parchment paper. I used a 1½-inch round cookie cutter to draw circles on the parchment paper and flipped the paper (drawing side down).

Preheat oven to 280 degrees and prepare a pastry bag with a round tip. I used Wilton 2A.

In the bowl of an electric mixer with the whisk attachment, combine the egg whites and sugar. Whip on medium-high speed until stiff peaks forms, about 5-7 minutes. 

Using a food processor, pulse the powdered sugar, almond flour and graham cracker crust into fine powder. Sift several times until there is less than 2 tablespoon of almond bits left.

Add the dry ingredients to the meringue and fold with a rubber spatula. Gently fold to deflate the meringue by pressing against the side of bowl and scooping from bottom until batter is smooth and shiny; about 20-25 folds. To check consistency, drop a spoonful of batter and it should have a peak that quickly relaxes back into the batter. Start checking the batter after 20 folds.

Transfer batter into pastry bag and pipe the batter into the pre-traced circles on the baking sheet.  Tap baking sheet hard on counter to release any air bubbles trapped in the batter.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until hard and slightly golden, rotating cookie sheets halfway through baking time. Cool completely on cookie sheets before peeling from the parchment.


For the Marshmallow frosting

 In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and icing sugar on low until combined, about 1 minute. Add vanilla and increase speed to medium and beat for about 3 minutes. Add the marshmallow fluff. Use immediately. 

Red, White and Blue Cake

Happy Monday!! I am recovering from a very long and fun weekend. But I'll share with you details of the bridal shower later in the week. For now, here is one of my stress-baking cakes from last week. Did I tell you that I am a stress baker? Whenever, I get overwhelmed with things, I pull up a recipe I have not made before or attempt an idea in my head and just go to town in the kitchen. Always helps calm my nerves.

This is an easy Red, White and Blue cake for the upcoming July 4th weekend celebrations. It's not too early to start planning. I got the idea for this cake when I saw the sprinkles at the check out counter of my grocery store. They always place the most mundane items along the check out, don't they? I had to sneak it into the cart before Mr J could see otherwise I would have received his favorite remark "you have a million other sprinkles you don't even use". Just like the speeches I get when I fall in love with yet another pair of shoes! Oh well, he saw them when we were unpacking the groceries and it was too late. Did I mention I have a shopping problem too?? Hmmmm, this is becoming a confessional so let's focus on the cake. 

I baked the cake just so I could decorate it with the sprinkles so I went with a simple vanilla butter cake with whipped vanilla bean frosting. It's a great recipe for a moist fluffy cake and I loved how it complemented the creamy vanilla bean frosting. I also made a batch of blue vanilla macarons to top the cake for a little extra touch and I wasn't sure how they would look on top of a cake. But I love how they add some character to this simple cake. 

For an upcoming July 4th weekend event, I would probably bake a more summer-y cake flavor like this lemon cake or strawberry lemonade cake though and keep the decorations the same. I love these sprinkles...can you see the cute little stars? My favorite.

Chocolate Espresso Macarons

I hope you guys had a wonderful memorial day weekend. Summer is officially here and it is time to fire up the grill, bake pies and eat frozen desserts. However, I'm starting my summer with some macarons! Chocolate espresso macarons.

I am in love with these tiny cookies and I can tell our relationship is just the beginning to a very long one (I am planning our wedding already :P). This is my second time making macarons since this first try here.  I think I love making them because you can see a progression since the last time. If you haven't tried these cookies yet, you really should because they are full of delicious crunchiness.

I was at Barnes & Nobles a few weeks ago picking up some summer reads when I found a book called "Macarons & More" on cleareance for $2.99 and you know I had to pick it up!! I adapted this recipe from their double dark chocolate macarons by adding a teaspoon of espresso powder to the cookie recipe for a little kick and filled the sandwiches with chocolate buttercream.  

There is a good dose of chocolate in these and after 24 hours refrigerated they are chewy, crunchy and soft on the inside. Very decadent!

The possibilities of flavors and colors are endless with macarons so expect to see some summer flavors soon!

Macarons {April Kitchen Challenge}

I can barely ice a cake smooth or pipe a buttercream rose and yet I am attempting to make macarons. I've never had a macaron and I've never made a macaron. But they made it to my baking 'bucket list' a few months ago when I came across these gorgeous tiffany blue macarons.

So when Lindsay from Love and Olive Oil announced her April Kitchen Challenge was to make macarons, it seemed like a great idea to give them a try now. Why wait till later?? Little did I know!

I jumped into the literature of macarons not knowing anything about what it takes to make a macaron. A common theme that was immediately clear was that making macarons is an extremely difficult task. Second, there are lots of different schools of thoughts about how to make a successful batch of macarons. A very 'superstitious' ritual if I must say. 

I started off with Brave Tart, as Lindsay suggested, and she has several great posts on all you need to know about macaroons. I learned almost everything from handling meringue to macaronage on her blog.

Most macaron recipes call for a food scale and since I wasn't about to buy one just yet, I had to look for a recipe that did not require a scale. I adapted a recipe from Sprinkle Bakes for the ingredients but I followed the instructions from Bravetart's macarons.  Thanks to her mythbuster article, I was able to go into this project prepared.

Making macarons starts with whipping up egg whites and sugar to make a stable meringue. Then sifting together almond flour and powdered sugar for the dry ingredients. The most crucial stage is  folding the dry ingredients into the meringue, the process of macaronage, which deflates the meringue. With proper macaronage you should have a ribbon-like mixture that can hold up to piping and maintain its shape. The batter is piped onto parchment paper in 11/2 inch circles, given a solid tap on a counter and baked for 10-15 minutes depending on your oven temperature. Sounds simple enough right??

Yeah, it's not. It took three batches. The first batch failed period. The second batch (pictured in cream) were 'oval' not circular and they baked somewhat crooked. The third batch (pink) turned out circular and much better. However, they still baked crooked...the shells were falling off. After three batches, my macarons were not perfect but that is ok. I did not expect to get perfect cafe-quality macarons on my first try. But with practice and good techniques I'll make close to perfect macarons one day.

It was great fun to jump into this project and not knowing much about macarons or how to make them. Thanks to Lindsay for inspiring this bold step. Now I'm looking forward to the next challenge she has in store. If you have not checked out her blog, do so NOW! It's amazing.

I have more macarons to experiment with and they might just show up on a certain dessert table I'm planning for an upcoming shower :)