Fruit flavored macarons are my favorite, and it's been really fun to try freeze dried berries in both the shells and fillings. I made some with raspberries, and then some with strawberries, so of course after that I wanted to try blueberries. There aren't a lot of blue or purple foods out there, but I have seen some gorgeous purple macarons. My macarons have dried blueberries in the cookie shells and the filling, so they are very, berry, tasty!
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Blueberry Macarons:
INGREDIENTS
2/3 cup almond flour
1 cup confectioners' sugar (117 grams)
2 large egg whites, room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar (53 grams)
1-2 drops purple food coloring (make the color darker than you want your final macarons, because they will get lighter in baking)
1/4 cup freeze dried blueberries, blended into a powder
FILLING
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup freeze dried blueberries, blended into a powder
3 teaspoons sugar
DIRECTIONS
1. Sift the almond flour, confectioners sugar, and blueberry powder together through a fine-mesh sieve.
2. Whisk egg whites at a low speed and add the granulated sugar after a minute while the egg whites are still clear.
3. Beat the egg whites into stiff, glossy peaks. Start at a low speed, then medium, and fast at the end. The goal is to create the meringue peaks without over-whipping the batter. If the batter is over-whipped, the macarons tend to hollow out underneath the shells and there are more air bubbles.
4. Add half of the dry ingredients. Fold with a spatula from bottom of bowl upward, then press the flat side of the spatula firmly through middle of mixture and rotate the bowl slightly. This process is called "macaronage" and reduces air bubbles in the batter. Add the second half of the dry ingredients and continue the macaronage until batter is glossy and flows like lava.
5. Rest a pastry bag inside a vertical cylinder to transfer the batter into the bag, then close the
top. Cut a small hole in the bottom tip of the pastry bag. The batter should be fairly stiff, but you don't want it to come out too quickly, I cut my hole to less than 1 cm in diameter.
6. Either onto a parchment sheet or a macaron mat, pipe batter into 1 inch round cookies.
A macaron mat helps to make the cookies uniformly round and the same size, I also find the raised rims helpful to contain the batter from spreading out on the sheets. My macarons on parchment paper are never very round, but some people use a template with circles underneath the parchment paper.
7. Drop the baking sheets firmly onto the counter 2 or 3 times to release air bubbles. With a toothpick, pop any remaining air bubbles and smooth out the holes before you let the macarons rest. Let the macaron sheets sit for 30-40 minutes to dry so that they create a slight crust on the surface.
8. Preheat oven to 160ºC.
9. Place the macarons in the oven. Bake macarons for 16 minutes, after 8 minutes it's a good idea to take the tray out and face the front to the back, this way both ends of the tray get evenly baked. Only bake 1 sheet of macarons at a time.
10. Filling: Whip the cream into a thick whipped cream, add the sugar to sweeten.
In a food processor or coffee grinder, grind the dried blueberries into powder and mix the powder into the whipped cream. The final filling should be quite stiff.
11. Once the macarons are completely cooled, remove them from the sheets and use a butter knife or spatula to spread the filling on half of the cookie shell bottoms. Then sandwich the macarons together with the remaining shells. Because this filling is cream-based, I recommend either freezing the macarons in a closed storage tin or else filling them just before serving. Even though the cream is thick, you don't want to risk soggy macarons.
Serve your blueberry macarons on a pretty plate with some tea and enjoy!
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