Strawberry and Buttercream French Macarons
Strawberries and cream—the unbeaten master of desert pairings! Now, in French Macaron form! These absolutely scrumptious bites of heaven are wonderful treats to bring with you to parties, brunches, as gifts, or just to enjoy with you, yourself, and some tea. Now, French Macarons are surprisingly easy once you’ve made them a couple of times, so don’t be intimidated! It may take you a try or two, but you’ll get the hang of them, and they’ll become your signature treat at parties. 😊
While the French Macarons themselves are not easy to adapt, this recipe offers you two skeleton recipes—a basic recipe for French Macarons, and a basic recipe for Buttercream. Using these skeleton recipes, you can adapt the flavors and fillings to anything your heart desires. From tea flavors to chocolate, candy, or fruit—whatever dances on your tongue will work with these cookies! Enjoy!
- 3 Egg whites (Room temperature )
- ¼ cups sugar
- 2 cups Powdered sugar
- 1 cup Almond flour
- Of salt
- ¼ teaspoons Cream of tartar
- 1 stick Unsalted butter (softened)
- 2 cups Powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
- 4 tablespoons Whipping cream
- Buttercream
- ½ cups Strawberry jam
- Step 1
Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
- Step 2
In a stand mixer, beat egg whites on medium/high until they become foamy. Once foamy, add salt, cream of tartar, and ¼ cup sugar.
- Step 3
Continue to beat on medium/high until stiff peaks form. Stiff peaks are when you pull up the whisk and the peak that forms on the mountain left behind stands straight up and doesn’t curl. It is also done if you can turn the bowl over and the mixture stays in place. This will take about 8 to 10 minutes.
- Step 4
In a separate bowl, mix together the almond flour, salt, and powdered sugar.
- Step 5
Remove bowl from stand and sift in half of the dry mixture. Fold the dry ingredients into the egg whites gently until incorporated, and then sift in the rest of the dry ingredients. Fold the mixture until it gets to a lava like consistency where you can draw a figure 8 with the batter as it falls from the spatula.
- Step 6
On a large cookie sheet covered with parchment paper, using a piping bag with a round tip, pipe out similarly sized rounds. Once you’ve piped out the macarons, bang the pan a couple of times to get out the air bubbles.
- Step 7
Let the piped macarons sit out until a skin forms. A skin forms when you run your finger gently over the top of the macarons and no batter sticks to your fingers. Once this happens, bake them for twenty minutes, or until their bottoms are very lightly brown.
- Step 1
In a stand mixer using the whisk attachment, cream softened butter on high until its color becomes visibly lighter. This will take about 7 minutes.
- Step 2
Once the butter is creamed, scrape down the sides of the bowl and add in the powdered sugar and vanilla. Mix on high until incorporated.
- Step 3
Add in the whipping cream and continue to mix the buttercream until it becomes light and fluffy.
- Step 1
Put both the buttercream and strawberry jam into their own piping bags with tips of your choosing.
- Step 2
Take two macaron shells and on one, pipe an outward circle of buttercream to act as a barrier, and drop a dollop of strawberry jam in the middle. Sandwich the cookies and continue this until they are all complete!
- Step 3
Serve immediately and enjoy!
Servings 10
- Amount Per Serving
- Calories 491kcal
- % Daily Value *
- Total Fat 27.1g42%
- Saturated Fat 13.7g69%
- Cholesterol 66mg22%
- Sodium 122mg6%
- Potassium 503mg15%
- Total Carbohydrate 56.5g19%
- Dietary Fiber 1g4%
- Sugars 48.7g
- Protein 4.2g9%
- Calcium 59 mg
- Iron 1 mg
- Vitamin D 6 IU
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily value may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.
Tips and Tricks
To get your eggs to room temp fast, fill a glass with warm water and place the eggs inside. They’ll warm up much quicker!
If you forgot to take your butter out of the fridge to soften it, place it in the microwave and blast for ten seconds at a time until it reaches the desired consistency.
When you pipe the macarons, do not pipe them in a circular motion. Instead, keep your hand steady and push out the batter straight down until it gets to the desired size, then stop squeezing the bag and flick your wrist away quickly.
Keep your bowls, spatulas, and whisks very clean! Egg white is tricky and dramatic, so a drop of something like oil on any of your tools will make it fail. So, it’s important to be clean with this one!
If you want to color your shells, you must use powdered coloring! Liquid or gel food coloring will alter the amount of moisture in the batter and ruin it—so make sure it’s powder!
Adaptations
These puppies are naturally gluten-free, so no worries for those that stay away from gluten.
This recipe offers you some really good ‘skeleton’ recipes—a basic one for French Macarons, and a basic one for Buttercream. With that in mind, you can change up the flavors and fillings however you like!
Unfortunately, you cannot, and I repeat, cannot, substitute anything in the French Macarons themselves. These guys are tricky and very sensitive. You can, however, add additional dry ingredients to flavor them such as Earl Grey tea leaves, matcha, cocoa powder, strawberry powder, or others! A good rule of thumb is ¼ cup additional dry flavoring.