Chocolate Macarons with Rosewater Buttercream

Macarons make me giddy. I love all the bright and beautiful colors, the variety of delicious fillings and, of course, the adorable, petite size. Every time we go to my favorite French bakery in West Seattle, Bakery Nouveau, I always have to buy every flavor they have and then quickly devour them all on the fifteen minute drive home. The question of shelf life of macarons in our household is similar to the question "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?" We may just never know...

For being such a little cookie, macarons are notoriously finicky to make. Just looking at the recipe, they seem fairly easy. I mean, the ingredient list only consists of almond meal, powdered sugar, egg whites and granulated sugar. But it isn't the ingredients that make these cookies so difficult, it is mastering the technique. You can make 100 batches of perfect macarons -- smooth, slightly domed tops with a little ruffled foot -- and then, for no apparent reason, batch number 101 fails completely -- lots of cracking on the shell and no adorable foot. These cookies take a lot of practice and a lot of patience to master.

But their finickiness is part of the reason why they are so fun to make. When the cookies turn out successfully, it is extremely elating and you gain some bragging rights among your fellow bakers. And when they fail, well they might not be pretty but they generally are still delicious. Brave Tart's posting "Macarons are for eating" has some wonderful tips on macaron success and failure. Delicious, delicious failure....

I am happy to say that this batch of macarons turned out pretty good. Some tops of the cookies were not as smooth as I would have liked -- my chef instructor calls the little bumps "macaron nipples" -- and the foot extended past the shell a bit. But over all size, shape and texture of the macarons were outstanding. The chocolate in the macaron helps cut down on some of the sweetness that is characteristic of most macarons and impairs my ability to eat more than 12 in one sitting. Some may say this is already enough, but they clearly have never had a macaron before.... The rosewater buttercream has a beautiful, floral note that may be overpowering on a fully frosted cake but is delicious in this small amount. Even the hubby who claims to "not really like macarons" (more for me!) helped himself to more than one.

My second quarter of baking school starts tomorrow and even though I had fun over spring break experimenting with some of my own recipes, I am ready to get back into the school kitchen. As I said in my posting on Hot Crossed Buns, the next quarter is going to focus on breads. The final project is to create our own, unique artisan bread. So look forward to the next few weeks featuring a lot of bread recipes. Delicious, delicious homework...

Live. Love. Bake.

Chocolate Macarons with Rosewater Buttercream
Yields about 2 dozen filled macarons.

Ingredients for chocolate macarons

65 g almond meal
105 g powdered sugar
8 g cocoa powder
50 g egg whites
20 g sugar

Ingredients for rosewater buttercream

3 Tb. sugar
1 egg white
5 Tb. butter, cut into 1" pieces and at room temperature 
1/4 - 1/2 tsp. rosewater
1-2 drops of pink food coloring  

Method for macarons 

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a food processor, blend together the almond meal, powdered sugar and cocoa powder until well mixed; about 5 minutes. 
3. Sift almond meal, powdered sugar and cocoa powder into a large bowl. Some of the mixture will not be able to go through the sifter. Just toss the remaining chunks into the bowl.
4. In a separate, clean bowl, combine egg whites with a couple drops of lemon juice (or vinegar). This will help stabilize the meringue. Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks begin to form. Add the sugar a little bit at a time to the egg whites. Continue to whisk until all the sugar is added to the bowl and stiff peaks are formed. 
5. Add a little bit of the meringue into the dry ingredients (about 1/4 of the whites). Mix together the meringue and dry ingredients until the texture becomes paste like. It will be fairly difficult to mix the meringue in. I generally use the back of my spoon to "smoosh" it together. If necessary, add a little more meringue to the mixture to achieve desired consistency.
6. Fold in the rest of the meringue in three parts. The mixture will slowly become more fluid and easier to work with.
7. Continue to mix until the batter is smooth and settles into itself when a ribbon of batter is laid across the top.
8. Fill a piping bag with the macaron batter and pipe it onto the prepared baking sheet using a round #4 tip. You can make the macarons as big or as small as you like. I generally try to make them about the size of a quarter.
9. Let the macarons sit until a "film" forms on top of the cookies. This could take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour depending on the humidity and warmth of your kitchen.
10. Bake the cookies in the preheated oven for 9 minutes. Rotate the baking sheet 180 degrees and continue baking an additional 9 minutes. 
11. Remove cookies from oven and allow to cool on a wire rack. 

Method for buttercream filling 

1. Combine egg white, sugar and a couple drops of lemon juice (or vinegar) in the bowl of your stand mixer. Set bowl over a large saucepan with simmering water. Whisk mixture until egg whites are warm to the touch and sugar is dissolved; about 5 minutes.
2. Transfer bowl to the stand mixer with whisk attachment. Whisk egg whites at medium speed until the mixture reaches room temperature. With this small of an amount it shouldn't take more than 5 minutes.
3. With the mixer running at low speed, add the butter one piece at a time; beating until each piece is incorporated before adding the next.
4. Add the food coloring and rosewater, enough of each to reach desired color and taste. Whisk just until mixed.

Macaron assembly 

1. Match up similar size and shape macaron halves.
2. Using a piping bag fitted with a #4 round tip, pipe a small mound of rose buttercream onto one half of the macarons. The amount of filling will vary depending on the size of your macarons.
3. Push and twist the two halves of the macarons together so that the buttercream completely fills the macaron.
4. Repeat this until all the macarons are filled.
5. Macarons can be refrigerated up to 3 days. Yum, enjoy!