Pumpkin Spice Macarons

 Gather your ingredients:

Almond Meal

Confectioner's sugar

Creme of Tartar

Eggs

Pumpkin Pie Spice

Trader Joe's Pumpkin Butter

 In your mixer, whip 3 egg white and 1/4 teaspoon of creme of tartar on medium for 3 minutes, then on high for an additional 4 minutes.

 While your egg whites are beating, you can mix your dry ingredients: 1 cup almond meal, 2 cups confectioner's sugar, 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice. When your egg whites are done beating, you will fold in the dry ingredients, starting with half, then folding in the other half after the first in incorporated well. After everything is mixed together, put the mixture in a pastry bag and pipe 1 inch circles on your cookie sheet. I like to use the silicon pan liners, it helps the macarons bake more evenly.

 Pre-heat your oven to 300 degrees and wait. Your little macarons need to rest before baking. At least 30 minutes, longer if it is humid. You will know when they are ready because you will be able to touch their tops without your finger sticking to them.

 Bake for 18 minutes. Remove and let cool completely. Once cool, spread Trader Joe's Pumpkin Butter on half of the macarons, then sandwhich them with the remaining half of the batch.

Voila! Enjoy!

obsession

If you are a new reader to this blog, hi! Welcome! 

You probably don't know (yet), but I'm kind of obsessed with macarons.

These were delicious!

Definitely worth breaking my diet for.

The green one was pistachio, the purple was chai tea, the tan one was salted caramel, the orange one was dark chocolate orange, and the beige one was coffee.

Seriously, so good.

cranberry macarons

 This year for our various Thanksgiving stops, I wanted to make some festive macarons to bring along. I decided on Pumpkin Spice, but at the last minute inspiration struck and I also made a more adventurous cranberry batch!

Above is the Cranberry Tea I used in the batter for the macaron shells.

 The beautiful meringue.

 Adding the sugar / almond meal / cranberry tea to the meringue.

 I piped and dried the macarons. I made 140 macarons! That's 280 individual shells. My wrists were in full carpal tunnel mode after piping all those little circles!

 Cranberry macaron shells, fresh out of the oven.

I filled the Cranberry macarons with my own improvised Cranberry Buttercream Icing. I made regular vanilla buttercream...and added some canned jellied cranberry sauce! 

 The finished product. Surprisingly, the cranberry flavor was very subtle. I think using cranberry tea in the shell batter helped keep the flavor more refined and sophisticated. This is definitely my favorite flavor of all I've tried to make so far!

And I did make a few batched of pumpkin spice too with cinnamon shells and pumpkin spice buttercream. I can't wait to make them again for next Thanksgiving!

suggestions - little oven bakery

 Usually our friday suggestions are a mix of themed items we've discovered on etsy lately that we love, but this week we're doing something a little different. I've purchased from this shop twice now, and have had such a great experience I want to share it all with you! When I'm not baking my own macarons, Little Oven is the place I turn to for a good mac fix. I love their unique flavors, careful packaging, and attention to detail.

I ordered a couple of the new fall flavors, and was impressed as always when they arrived.

I ordered (clockwise from L to R): Salted Pear & Caramel, Pumpkin Pie, and Pistachio.

Salted Pear and Caramel - the tang of the pear is the first taste that quickly mingles with the caramel and sprinkle of salt. by far my favorite flavor from little oven that I have tried.

Pumpkin Pie - very light pumpkin taste, not overwhelming, very subtle.

Pistachio- my all time favorite macaron flavor, and little oven does it to perfection!

**DISCLAIMER** Little Oven is NOT a sponsor of windshield diaries, and I have not been compensated for this post, I just think they have the best macarons you can get on etsy, and I wanted to share the wealth :)

PS: TOMORROW IS THE LAST DAY TO ENTER FOR A CHANCE TO WIN A DIANA F+ CAMERA! Click to enter!

baking with CAPow!

I mentioned a couple of weeks back that I baked some Nutella Macarons for M's sister and step-mom. Here's how it went:

Step 1: cutting the parchment paper to line the pans and drawing 18 circle templates on each sheet.

Meanwhile, make sure the eggs and butter are reaching room temperature.

Double sift the dry ingredients.

Pipe the macaron batter, then let for 15-30 mins until they don't stick to your finger when touched. Make sure to rap the sheet against the counter a few times to help encourage good pied!

Unfortunately, they didn't come out as perfect as I had hoped. The first batch was the perfect consistancy, but I didn't let them dry long enough so they cracked during baking, and didn't pied. The second batch I grabbed the wrong measuring spoon, so the dry ingredients measurements were TOTALLY WRONG. They didn't look right, but they still tasted amazing! 

I let the macarons cool, then filled the first batch with Nutella and the second batch with Peanut Butter Buttercream that I adapted from this recipe at Suzy Bakes.

If you want to try baking your own batch I totally recommend the cookbook I use: I Love Macarons. This book is super affordable, AND offers step by step photo instructions that makes baking macarons a snap!

patriotic macarons

I wanted to make a patriotic dessert for our 4th celebrations, so I decided to go with my latest obsession: macarons. Red, white, and blue macarons to be more specific. The "red" came out more like pink, and were filled with raspberry buttercream. The "white" baked up to be more yellow...they were vanilla. The "blue" had a green tinge to them, and were filled with blueberry buttercream. I think I also whipped the batter a little too much because the peaks didn't settle when I baked them. So they looked a littled wonky, but they still tasted pretty sweet!

macarons: take two

After making my first batch of macarons a little too crispy, I couldn't wait to try to whip up another batch to see if I could achieve the correct texture.

This batch: chocolate batter. Yum!

 I make the macs about double the size of the first batch, my logic was that the first batch were too crispy because I didn't make them big enough for the recipe's allotted baking time.

As I waited for the macs to dry/settle, I got to work making the fillings. Half would be filled with raspberry preserves, the other half: peanutbutter buttercream!

Success!!

The texture was perfect, and the fillings were delicious! These did not last very long, we gobbled them up pretty quickly!

baking my first macarons

I have been obsessed with macarons since I had my first one in april. Last week I finally bought the I Love Macarons book, and this week I decided to take the plunge and try baking my own!

Step one was to draw out my template on parchment paper. I tried tracing a circle, but it kept slipping around so I just did them all free hand.

The main ingredients: almond meal and confectioners sugar

the almond meal and the sugar have to be double sifted together...I think I bought a sifter with too fine mesh, so this step was long and frustrating for me.

The egg whites and sugar after being meringued together.

The book gave a really great tip for how to fill a pastry bag when you don't have a second set of hands to help. Ingenious!

Little macs in a row. After you place them on the parchment paper, they need to sit and settle. Mine had to settle a really long time because it was a humid rainy day. You know they are settled when you touch them and they don't stick to your finger. I was getting impatient, so I didn't wait long enough and a few ended up cracking.

While the macs were settling, I tried making the buttercream recipe from the book...and this is what happened when I tried to make simple syrup in the microwave and didn't monitor it... so I ditched their buttercream recipe and just used my own: unsalted butter, an egg, an confectioners sugar.

Ok little macs, you've waited long enough, time to go in the oven!

The book suggested turning the tray halfway through the baking process (15-18 minutes). So I turned the tray at 8 minutes.

And they are done! You can see a couple cracked, but other than that they look pretty good!

After letting them cool for about 30 minutes, I piped the buttercream and started to sandwich them.

Aren't they cute little guys?

Vanilla with vanilla buttercream macarons.

Next time I make them, I think I will half the recipe, because it's enough batter for 2 dozen macs! And I think I will make them a little bigger. I think I made them a little too small for the allotted cooking time, and they came out too crisp. Next time, we'll try making them at a 2" diameter instead of a 1" diameter.

But they are still tasty, even if they are a little crispy! M can't stop eating them!

macaron obsession

as a birthday treat to myself, i ordered some fresh macarons from little oven on etsy.

of the several delicious sounding flavors offered, i decided to go with raspberry, caramel, dark chocolate, and pistachio... pistachio was my favorite!

after lusting over macarons for months due to their lack of availability in my smaller city, this was a real treat. i am looking forward to placing my next order soon...and i think next time i might just get a whole box of pistachio!