White Chocolate Peppermint French Macarons

You wanna know something? I've had this post close to ready for a pretty long time. The problem is, I just couldn't find the time to finish during the holiday season. I wasn't busy enjoying the holiday season, immersing myself in the holiday spirit, no. While most of you were jumping for joy and overflowing with holiday cheer, I was gritting my teeth, holding on to dear life hoping to make it through December. No, I'm not Scrooge or the Grinch in disguise, I just work in the service industry. December for us service industry people means longer and harder days, the worst customers of the year, and all around misery. It's our job to "serve" the public while THEY enjoy the holidays. Anybody who is in this business can feel my pain. I know I didn't get this to you in time for Christmas as I intended, but these are so delicious that you'll forgive me. Throw out that nasty Williams-Sonoma peppermint bark and make these instead!!

White Chocolate Peppermint French Macarons
Makes 56 small filled macarons (1.5 inches)
Shells adapted from Macarons by Cecile Cannone

What you'll need:

       Macaron Shells:

2 3/4 cups (250 grams) - almond flour (I like unblanched but most use blanched)

2 3/4 cups (350 grams) - powdered sugar

1 cup - egg whites (from 7-8 eggs) at room temperature

pinch of salt

3/4 cup (150 grams) - superfine granulated sugar

enough red food coloring to get desired color

      White Chocolate Peppermint Buttercream:

1 cup - unsalted butter, softened

2 3/4 cups - powdered sugar

6 ounces high quality white chocolate, chopped

1/4 cup - heavy cream

1 1/2 teaspoon - peppermint extract

Instruction:

Preheat the oven to 325 and line your baking sheets with parchment paper.

Blend the almond flour with the powdered sugar in the food processor to make mixture as fine as possible (or sift together, discarding any large crumbs and adding a bit more almond flour and powdered sugar as needed to compensate). Sift the mixture through a strainer until it's as fine as you can get it. This keeps crumbs from forming on the macaron tops as they bake.

With the wire whip attachment on the electric mixer, beat the egg whites with the salt and the powdered egg whites (if you're using), starting slowly and then increasing speed as the whites start to rise. Add the granulated sugar. Beat until the egg whites form stiff peaks and your meringue is firm and shiny.

Fold the egg whites into the almond meal mixture, using a rubber spatula. Now hit the spatula against the rim of the bowl until the batter falls in a wide ribbon when you raise the spatula. When you can't see any crumbs of almond flour and the mixture is shiny and flowing you're done mixing.

   Fit your pastry bag with a number 806 round tip or equivalent. Pipe the batter into even circles. I like to pipe mine about 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 inch diameter but you can make them bigger or smaller if you'd like. Be sure to leave about 1/2 inch of space between macarons so they will not touch each other while they bake. (If the peak that forms on the top of the macaron doesn't disappear after piping, it means the batter could have been beaten a little more. To eliminate the peaks, tap the baking sheet on the tabletop, making sure to hold the parchment paper in place with your thumbs).

Let the piped macarons rest for 20 minutes before baking.

Bake for 14 minutes. After the first 5 minutes, open the oven door briefly to let the steam out. Don't forget to do this, it's very important to get the excess moisture out of your oven.

Let the macarons cool completely on the pan before taking them off the parchment paper. Press the bottom of a cooled baked macaron shell with your finger; it should be soft. If it's hard, reduce the baking time for the rest of your macarons from 14 minutes to 13 minutes.

To make the buttercream: melt the white chocolate over low heat in a saucepan. Stir until smooth then set aside to cool.

Cream the butter for about a minute. Add the powdered sugar and peppermint extract and mix until combined.

Beat in the heavy cream on medium speed for 2-3 minutes.

With the mixer on medium, slowly pour the cooled white chocolate into the buttercream.
Increase the mixer speed to medium-high, and beat for about 3 minutes.

Once the macaron shells are cooled, pipe a small amount of buttercream on to the middle of one shell. Very gently twist another shell on top of the buttercream.

Store the filled macarons in the refrigerator. The buttercream will harden slightly so let the macarons sit out for 5-10 minutes before serving. Enjoy!

Tips:

Almond meal or almond flour is just finely ground almonds. You can buy it blanched and unblanched. When almonds are blanched, it means that the outer skin has been removed. I like unblanched almond meal because I like the look of the little specks of the skin in the finished macarons.

If using unblanched almonds like me, it helps to sift the almond meal as your measuring it out to insure you don't have any big pieces of skin in your mixture.

If you "age' your egg whites in the refrigerator for one day in advance, it will help a little of the moisture evaporate, giving you a better chance of success. If you don't have time to do this don't worry, just add about 5 minutes to the resting time before baking and that will help.  

If you live in a very humid area, add 2 teaspoons of powdered egg whites to your fresh egg whites to help stabilize.

It's harder than you think to make consistent circles with the batter. I made myself a template to put under the parchment so I know that all of my shells will be exactly the same. My template has fifteen 1 3/4 inch diameter circles. Once you pipe the shells onto the parchment, you just pull out the template to pipe the next batch.

Remember, these are very temperamental things to make, if your first batch or even second batch doesn't come out quite so pretty don't worry, you WILL get the hang of it and make perfect macarons. Practice makes perfect!