Strawberry Swirl Macarons

This recipe is a fun twist on a classic favorite.

For the Shells:

102g Almond Flour

198g Powdered Sugar

Pinch of Salt

116g Egg Whites

60g Sugar

1t Vanilla Extract

3g Freeze Dried Strawberries (powdered)

For the Filling:

1/2c Butter

3c Powdered Sugar

5T milk

1t vanilla

3T Freeze Dried Strawberries (powdered)

Equipment:

Hand Mixer/ Stand Mixer/ Whisk

Mixing Bowls

Rubber Spatula

Kitchen Scale

Sifter

Baking Sheet

Parchment

Ziplock baggies or piping bags

Food Coloring (optional)

Not Totally Necessary but Preferable:

Wire Cooling Rack

Wilton 2A Piping Tip

A

**You can make this recipe with a whisk, but a mixer will make it much easier.

Measure your almond flour, powdered sugar and salt into a bowl.

Sifting your dry ingredients will help to ensure you get a smooth macaron shell, I usually sift twice.

This is where the mixer comes in. You want to measure your wet ingredients into separate bowls.

**Be careful not to get any yolk in bowl, the whites won't whip up if there's fat in there.

**Use room temperature eggs. If you didn't put some out ahead you can put some eggs into a bowl of warm water for a few minutes.

Turn your mixer on high and beat the egg whites until they start to get frothy. Once the eggs start to look foamy (like in the picture) start to slowly add in the granulated sugar and vanilla. You can keep the mixer on low while you add in the rest of the wet ingredients.

Once all the wet ingredients are mixed in turn the mixer back up to high and mix for about 5 minutes. You know it's done when you can pull the beater out and the peaks hold their shape.

It's important to do this step carefully so that you don't knock the air out of the eggs. Slowly fold the wet and dry ingredients together until the batter falls back into the bowl in smooth ribbons when you lift it out.

Put half of the batter into a piping bag (or a ziplock baggie). Add your powdered freeze dried strawberries to the other half and gently mix that in, you can add a little pink food coloring to enhance the color if you want. Then add this half of the batter to a separate piping bag.

**Either a mortar and pestle or spice grinder work well to powder the strawberries.

**If you want, you can skip this step and make just a vanilla macaron.

Take the two bags you just filled and put them into a third bag fitted with a Wilton 2A Tip (If you don't have a piping tip just cut the bag straight, you should still be able to make the cookies pretty uniform without one.) Now you should have two bags inside of one, this will allow you to pipe two colors to get a swirled look. I use a baking sheet lined with parchment so that my cookies don't stick and a paper with 1.5" circles under the parchment to get uniform circles which I pull out before I bake them.

Bang the tray on the table a couple times. This gets the air bubbles out so that they don't rise up during baking and leave craters on the shells.

Let your cookies set for 30 minutes to an hour. A crust will form on the top of the shell, you should be able to tap the shell gently without getting batter on your finger. If you don't let the shells crust you won't get feet on your macaron.

While the cookies are setting start your filling. Start by mixing your butter and powdered sugar.

**Make sure you use room temperature butter.

Add in the milk, vanilla, and powdered strawberry and mix well

Bake the shells at 300°F for 18 minutes. When they're done you should be able to push gently on the shell and the top won't wiggle around.

Place on wire rack to cool. If you put icing on a warm cookie it will melt off so make sure you wait until they're completely cool.

**If you don't have a wire rack you can let them cool on some parchment paper on the counter, but still make sure you take them off the hot pan.

Pipe a thin layer of icing and put another shell on top.

You did it! Enjoy!