Sakura (Cherry Blossom) Macarons
Sakura Macarons
A sweet, petite bite of Spring, these macarons are perfect for birthday parties, tea parties, any parties!
Equipment
- Kitchen Scale (Highly recommended for all your baking!)
- Immersion blender or regular blender
- Food processor (optional)
- Fine mesh sieve
- Candy Thermometer
- Stand mixer or hand-held electric mixer with whisk attachment
- Piping bag with plain round piping tip - I use Ateco #804
- Half sheet pans (18" x 13"), 2 or 3
- Parchment paper
Ingredients
Macaron Shells
- 150 grams Almond flour, blanched (no skins) (aka almond meal)
- 150 grams Confectioners sugar (aka icing sugar or powdered sugar)
- 110 grams Egg whites, divided
- 150 grams Granulated sugar
- 7.5 grams Titanium Dioxide powder, food grade (optional - this is to whiten the mac shells)
- 2 grams Luster dust, food grade, pink (optional - for the macaron splatter pattern)
- 1-2 tbsp Alcohol - rum, vodka, ect. (optional - to mix with the luster dust to make the splatters)
Sakura Ganache
- 220 grams White chocolate, such as Valrhona Ivoire (white baking chips will not work, it's gotta be the real stuff!)
- 200 grams Heavy cream
- 45 grams Pickled cherry blossoms, still in salt
- 8-10 drops Pink food coloring
- 1/4 tsp Cherry blossom flavoring (optional)
Instructions
Make the Sakura Ganache
- Weigh out 45 grams pickled cherry blossoms, still in their salt, into a medium bowl. Cover with cold water and allow to sit for 5 minutes. The cherry blossoms will float to the top and the salt will sink to the bottom of the bowl. Skim the cherry blossoms out of the water, wash out the bowl, and then repeat this process 2 more times, for a total of 3 washes. Strain the blossoms and very gently squeeze them to remove most of the water. Wash and dry the bowl, put the cherry blossoms back in the bowl, and set aside.
- Meanwhile, chop the white chocolate into bite-size pieces and gently melt in microwave. Chocolate really likes to burn so it's important to do this low and slow. I find that half power for 1 minute increments works well. Stir after each increment. If the chocolate looks mostly melted but still has a few pieces, let it sit on the counter for 5 minutes. Stir it again and you may find that all the chocolate has melted! If it hasn't, pop it back in the microwave at half power for 15 second increments until it's fully melted.
- After the chocolate is melted, heat the cream in the microwave just until it starts to simmer - 1-2 minutes. Slowly pour the cream over the cherry blossoms in the medium bowl. Allow to sit for 5 minutes. Add the melted chocolate to the cream and cherry blossom mixture. Gently stir until the white chocolate and cream combine to make a smooth ganache with bits of cherry blossoms throughout.
- Using an immersion blender, regular blender, or food processor, blend the ganache to puree the cherry blossoms and make it completely smooth. Add the food coloring, a drop at a time, blending after each addition, until the desired color is achieved--10 drops of deep pink gel food coloring gave me the "cotton candy pink" color I was going for. If desired, add the cherry blossom flavoring and blend. Scrape the mixture into a container and chill in the refrigerator until it firms up to a pipeable consistency - 2-3 hours.
Make the Macaron Shells
- Prepare your baking sheets: It's important to have at least 2 baking sheets so you can pipe all your batter at once, even though you will bake one tray at a time. For this recipe, I use 3 half sheets and pipe 30 (3.5cm) shells on each sheet for a total of 90 shells or 45 assembled macarons. In order to make the shells a uniform size and evenly spaced, I created a template on my computer - 15 (3.5cm) circles on letter size paper. I lay down 2 templates on each baking sheet and lay the parchment paper right on top. The circles are easy to see under the parchment. Make sure your parchment is trimmed to the right size so that it lays flat on the baking sheet. No cooking spray or butter is need to prepare these sheets! If your macarons are baked properly, they will release from the parchment just fine.
- Move one of the oven racks to the middle position and preheat the oven to 350Ā°F. Weigh out the almond flour and confectioners sugar into a medium bowl and mix together thoroughly. At this point, if you have a food processor, it's always a good idea to process the almond flour and confectioners sugar together so that they are well combined and the almond flour is ground a little more finely. If you don't have a food processor, DON'T WORRY, the macarons will still be great!
- Push the almond flour and confectioners sugar mixture through a fine mesh sieve into a large bowl. The purpose of this is to strain out any big pieces of almond flour that might keep the macaron shells from looking smooth. You can throw out 1-2 tbsp of larger almond flour pieces without ruining the recipe so don't worry about getting every last bit perfectly ground.
- Weigh out half of the egg whites - 55g - into a small bowl. If using the titanium dioxide to whiten the shells: Mix the titanium dioxide with 10g warm water. Add this mixture to the 55g egg whites and whip with a fork to combine. Pour this mixture into the large bowl of almond flour and confectioners sugar but DO NOT MIX. Set aside.
- Weigh out the other 55g of egg whites into the bowl of your stand mixer. Add the whisk attachment and starting whipping on medium speed. You want the egg whites to be whipped to soft peaks when the sugar syrup is ready.
- To make the sugar syrup: While the egg whites are whipping, combine the granulated sugar with 38g of water in a small saucepan. Heat without stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved, the mixture is boiling rapidly and a candy thermometer in the syrup registers 240Ā°F.
- With the mixer whipping on low speed (the egg whites should be whipped to soft peaks at this point), slowly pour 1/4 of the 240Ā°F sugar syrup down the side of the bowl into the egg whites. Stop pouring and turn the mixer up to medium-high for 10 seconds. Turn the mixer back down to low speed and repeat, pouring another 1/4 of the sugar syrup down the side of the bowl. Repeat until all the syrup is added to the egg whites.
- Whip the egg whites and sugar syrup mixture (now it's a meringue!) on medium high for about 5 minutes or until the meringue has cooled to 120Ā°F, according to your candy thermometer. (Also, if you pull the whisk attachment out of the meringue, the meringue will make a gentle "bird's beak" shape on the end of the whisk and if you turn the bowl upside down, the meringue won't slip--2 other indicators that your meringue is ready!)
- Scrape every last bit of the meringue into the large bowl of almond flour, confectioners sugar, and egg whites. Use a spatula to fold the mixture together, continuously scraping up from the bottom of the bowl, until the mixture drops from the spatula like a ribbon and settles back into the batter within 10-20 seconds. Mixing macaron batter to the correct consistency is one of the trickier parts of making macarons. It's very hard to describe. Here's a video to show the mixing technique and correct consistency: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qukJCnps-So In this video from Michelle's Macarons, Michelle is using the French method of macaron making. I'm using the Italian method here. Nevertheless, her description and video of what the batter should look like is the exactly the same across all macaron recipes.
- Fit your piping bag with the piping tip. You can prevent the macaron batter from flowing out of the tip while you're trying to fill it by using a twist tie to close off the bag right at the base of the piping tip. I recommend placing your piping bag in a large drinking glass and rolling the edges of the bag over the lip of the cup. Then your bag will be stationary and you don't have to hold it while you fill it! Fill the bag 2/3's of the way full and twist the end to close. When you're ready to pipe, remove the twist tie and, keeping your bag vertical, pipe each macaron shell just to the edge of each circle, then release your pressure on the bag and quickly flick the tip to cut off the flow of batter. Again, this is a difficult process to describe, please check out another of Michelle's Macarons videos where she shows and explains exactly how to pipe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGSWKVmvUb0
- Once you've piped an entire baking sheets of macaron shells, place a towel on the counter, lift up the baking sheet about a 18 inches, and drop it on the towel 3-5 times. The towel is there to muffle the sound because this will be loud! Dropping the tray will knock out air bubbles and help to smooth the tops of the shells if you have an bumps left over from piping. Repeat this process with the other trays of piped macarons.
- Allow the macarons to sit out for 20-30 minutes until a "skin" forms over the top of each macaron. You'll know the skin is formed with the macarons start to appear dull instead of shiny and when you touch one, it feels smooth and dry and no batter comes off onto your finger.
- Baking the macarons: There are many schools of thought on the right temperature and time limit for macaron baking--I've experimented with many different techniques. For the Italian method, which I've used here, I've found that 350Ā°F for 30 (3.5cm) shells, for 12 minutes, yields pretty reliable results. I bake them for 7 minutes, then open the oven, rotate the baking sheet, bake them for 5 more minutes, then remove them to cool. After that first 7 minutes the frilly edge of the macaron (known as the "foot") should be formed. The next 5 minutes is about making sure the macarons are fully cooked and set.
- Allow the macarons to cool for about 10 minutes and then gently peel back the parchment paper to release the shells. They should come off pretty easily. If you find they are sticking, I recommend a couple of solutions: 1. After all the macarons have been baked, turn the oven down to 200Ā°F and put the macarons back in to dry out for 7-10 minutes. This should dry out any stickiness on the bottom of the macaron. 2. Put the tray into your freezer for 20 minutes and then remove the macarons right after taking it out.
- Match up your macaron shells into pairs. Optional: If you'd like to create the splatters on your macarons: Mix the luster dust with the alcohol to create the "paint." Use a small paint brush (used for food only!) to lightly splatter the macaron shells. You do not want to use water here as it will soak through the macarons and make them soft. The alcohol will quickly evaporate, leaving just the paint splatter effect and no aftertaste.
- Fit a piping bag with a round tip (I like Ateco #804 for this also) and fill the bag with the sakura ganache. (You won't need the twist tie trick on this one as the ganache is firm enough that it won't flow out of the bag.) Pipe rounds of ganache onto one of each of the pairs of macarons and sandwich the 2 macarons together, pushing them gently but firmly so that the ganache spreads to the edge of the shells. It's really a personal choice on how much ganache to add, I like my macarons pretty full. š Experiment and see what you like!
- You can start eating your macs right away BUT they are best if you allow them to "mature," well wrapped, in the refrigerator, for 18-24 hours. This resting period allows the moisture in the ganache filling to permeate the shells, creating a velvety yet chewy texture. These macs will keep well in your freezer (as long as your wrap them thoroughly) for a month!
