Caramel Coffee Macarons

Dear adorably delicious little french macaron,

I owe you an apology. While I’ve always admired your sweet little delicate looks, crunchy shell, chewy inside, yummy filling, and adorably bubbly “feet” – I’ve been avoiding you. You see, in the bakingsphere, you tend to have a bit of a “high maintenance” reputation. And despite the fact that I took over 7 years of french, hold a lifelong dream of a trip to France, and pretty much adore anything French, I just never took the time to understand you’re complications. In my defense I’ve read blog after blog on how much kitchen drama you’ve caused. Today I’ve wrote to say, I was wrong. I never should have put off attempting to master your amazingly deliciousness. Sure, your ways take a little adjusting to conquer and maybe you aren’t always “perfect”, I mean who is. But I’ve found way to make this work between us and truth be told, I’m hooked. I’m so sorry for leaving you completely out of my baking adventures, and I’m going to make it up to you with lots of blog time. Your endless flavor opportunities are keeping me up at night, and I just can’t wait to see you in my kitchen again!

I wish I could say I’m being a little over dramatic here, but ladies and gents I am not. Thankfully a few things happened recently to push me into trying them. One of my friends has been dying to try them and asked me if I would make some (my initial response uhhhhhh and crap they’ve noticed) and then I found this awesome silicon macaron mat at World Market. Despite the fact that I have read many bad reviews on silicon macaron mats I really wanted to try it. If 7.99 could help my macaron dreams come true – it was worth a shot! (spoiler alert: I love it!)

So finally this week I set out to conquer the macaron. My first batch came out pretty good but definitely not perfect. My second batch came out an absolute disaster, one pan decent but over cooked and one pan of broken exploded shells a complete mess. I was just about to toss the entire idea and chalk it up as a fail – but I was just too determined. I reached out to my sweet friend Mindy from Creative Juice. (who just happens to have her own book of 75 macaron designs go check it out!) Turns out I was doing everything right except one single thing, so I went back to work and with one little tweak I had sweet macaron success! I’ve been baking up macarons and playing with new flavor combos ever since! Seriously, I’m hooked!

For these I made macarons coffee flavored macaron shells using coffee extract and then filled with my favorite crazy easy caramel butter cream flavored with Duncan Hines caramel frosting creations packet. (seriously the best way to make caramel flavored anything!) And I baked them on the silicon macaron mat as I mentioned above. I loved that I could easily fill each spot with batter to create perfectly circular macarons every time. It really helped me as a beginner to “get it right”. But don’t worry, you don’t HAVE to have the mat to create awesome macaroons. I also made many by tracing 1.5in circles on to parchment paper then flipped it over and piped my circles. My hand piped ones were definitely not nearly as pretty so for now I’ll stick with my mat!

Here’s what you’re going to need!

Coffee Macarons
4oz Almond Flour
8oz Powdered Sugar
5oz Egg Whites
2 1/20z Sugar
2 Tsp. Coffee Extract
1/2 Tsp. Salt

Caramel Buttercream
1/2 Cup Unsalted Butter
2 Cups Powdered Sugar
1 Packet Of Duncan Hines Frosting Creations Caramel
1-2 Tsp. Milk

Makes approx. 48 macarons.

Note: The mat I used creates a smaller macaron similar to the size of traditional French macarons. Americans tend to make them much larger which will lessen the final amount of macarons. Also I listed the recipe for macarons in weight because I have found it’s incredibly important to have exact amounts with this particular dessert.

Step 1: Measure out all of your macaron ingredients first. This really makes it so much easier when working with treats like this. (excuse the yellow coloring here, this was from a previous batch)

Step 2: In the bowl of an electric mixer, pour in egg whites, salt, and sugar. (You can do this with a hand mixer it will just take a little more work and careful attention.) Set timer for 3 minutes and beat at a medium speed using the whisk attachment (4 on my KitchenAid). Once the 3 minutes are up turn it up about 3 notches to speed 7 and beat for another 3 minutes. Once those are up turn it all the way up on high and beat one last time for 3 minutes.

Step 3: While your meringue is beating sift your almond flour and powdered sugar into a bowl. Once all is sifted you should have some small bits of almond that were too large to pass through. If there is a tsp. or less you just leave them out, if there is more you will want to send them through a food processor to grind them up before pouring into the batter.

Step 4: Add in extract and any coloring if you would like, I added just a little brown gel coloring here. Beat on high for about 30 seconds, stop and use a spatula to scrap all the unmixed meringue from the sides, then beat for 30 more seconds.

Here is where you really have to pay attention, you will need just the right consistency to get a good macaroon.

Step 5: Add in dry ingredients. Using a spatula “fold” the batter with about 25-28 turns of the spatula going around the bowl then across in a swooping pattern. By doing this you are deflating some of the extra air from the batter. Make sure to get everything off the bottom mixed in. At first it will seem really thick and clumpy but it will smooth out quick. You want a thickness that is still thick enough to hold a little shape but thin enough to fold back into itself. You can check this every few stirs by holding up your spatula with batter on it, the batter should “drop” off the spatula but then settle into the batter after a few moments.

Step 6: Using a small round tip (I used Wilton 10) and piping bag pipe small 1-1.5 inch circles onto either a macaron mat or parchment paper. Again, I used a macaron mat and it REALLY made this process so easy. But you could simply pipe circles on to parchment paper and even pre-draw circles on the bottom as guides. Either way you need to remember you batter will spread a bit so you don’t want to pipe all the way to the sides or the circle.

Step 7: Preheat the oven for 290-300 degrees (mine was perfect at 295 you may have to play with your temps a bit). Then set your piped macarons trays on the counter and set the timer for 25 minutes. DO NOT place the macarons in the oven right after piping. Do your dishes, read a book, create list of futre macaron flavors, but DO NOT place them in the oven. After about 25-30 minutes your macarons should have a slight “crust” over them. When you gently touch them they should not stick to your finger. Bake for 15-18 minutes, time will depend on size.

Step 8: After pulling tray from oven, carefully pull the baking mat OR parchment paper off the baking tray and on to the counter to cool. Let the cool COMPLETELY before attempting to remove.

While they are cooling you can whip up some yummy filling.

Step 9: In a large mixing bowl or bowl of an electric mixer, beat butter until fluffy add in powdered sugar and Caramel Frosting Creations packet until combined. Add in 1-2 Tbs. of milk a little add a time beating in between until you achieve desired consistency.

Step 10: Using the same size tip and piping bag, pipe buttercream on one side of each macaron and then sandwich together.

I know I’ve shared a TON of new information today, but if there’s one thing I want you to take away from this post today it is that EVEN THE WORST MACARONS STILL TASTE AMAZING! I’m not even kidding, my kiddos were standing at the stove begging for the fragments of my macaroons fails, more like mini explosions. So really what have you got to lose? It doesn’t matter if your an advanced baker, beginner, mommy in the kitchen, or you’ve simply need a great dessert…you can make these macarons too, I promise! Then come back and let me know how it went!

Stay tuned for more macaron flavors…and maybe even a little giveaway!