Coconut Macarons with Chocolate Buttercream Filling

Posted on May 21, 2011. Filed under: Desserts |

Today I made French macarons sprinkled with coconut and filled with chocolate buttercream. This is only my 2nd try at making macarons, but I thought they came out very nice.

Here are the ingredients I used followed by my method.

Macarons:

1 cup almond flour (112g)
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar (180g)
3 extra large egg whites (100g)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar (24g)
sweetened coconut

Chocolate Buttercream:

6 tablespoons butter (84g)
2 2/3 cups powdered sugar (319g)
1/2 cup cocoa (40g)
1/3 cup milk (76g)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Separate the egg whites, cover them, and let them get to room temperature (I vacuum sealed them and left them on the counter overnight). Whip them in a copper bowl for several minutes until they start to get foamy. You don’t have to use a copper bowl, but I read that it makes the best, stable meringues so I thought it was worth a shot.

Add the 2 tbs granulated sugar and whisk until glossy with pretty stiff peaks. It takes about 30 minutes.

After whisking the eggs, measure the almond flour (I used Bob’s Red Mill) and powdered sugar. I like to use a kitchen scale for accuracy.

Last time I made these I found the almond flour a little lumpy. This time I blended it with the sugar in a food processor. I think it made it a little smoother, but I’m not sure if it was worth the hassle. I sifted it twice. I found my method of sifting to be time consuming and messy. I have a real sifter on my shopping list to avoid this in the future.

Combine the eggs and flour and mix lightly. The eggs will deflate which seems like all the whisking work is going to waste, but for some reason they come out light.

Transfer the mix to a piping bag using a large round tip and start piping them onto parchment paper. I used circles that were about 1 1/2″ in diameter. My daughter piped them out and she got about 80. By the 4th sheet she was pretty proficient. Some were amoeba shaped and they were sporadically bigger and smaller, but I found that it didn’t matter since you can probably find another one about the same size. Here is the printout for my guide. Macaron Template

After piping them sprinkle them with coconut. Let them sit for about an hour so they have a slight crust on them. The first time I made these I cooked them in an oven on Silpats at 280°. I got pretty good results, but I made the mistake of putting both cookie sheets in at the same time. I wanted to try my Nuwave oven this time since it seems more like a convection oven. It took me about 3 tries before I got the best results. the best batch was at power level 7 (275°) for 12 minutes. The butter knives are just to keep them from getting sucked into the fan.

After cooking them, one sheet at a time, cool completely. After they cool loosen them and turn them all over. Prepare the chocolate buttercream filling. Allow the butter to soften then cream it in a mixer. Then add the remaining ingredients and blend well in a mixer.

Scoop the filling into another icing bag and use the big round tip again. Pipe a good sized ring onto half of the cookie rounds and top with another round of similar size.