Why have a plain Pistachio Macaron? Given, they taste absolutly amazing, but lets jazz it up a little? 🙂 Ive added Caramlised Pistachio’s and white chocolate to the mix, and they’ve turned out DEVINE!

Here’s how you make them!

INGREDIENTS:

On a note – I will be making an Italian Merengue for the Macaron as I have felt through all my many tries that this is the best merengue that works for making it at home.

The Macaron Shell –

• 150g Almond Flour
• 25g Finely Ground Pistachio
• 150g Icing Sugar
• 2x55g Egg White (can be the egg white of 2 or 3 eggs depending on how small or large they are)
• 50g Water
• 150g Granulated Sugar
• A couple drops of green food colouring

The Caramalised Pistachio and White Chocolate Swiss Merengue BUttercream (sheesh thats a long name! ) –

• 1/2 Cup Unsalted and de-shelled Pistachio
• 1/4 Cup of Glucose syrup
• 4 Egg Whites
• 1.5 cup Granulated Sugar
• 1.5 cup Unsalted Butter, Room Temperature And Cut Into Small Cubes
• 1/2 Cup White Chocolate, melted and cooled
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1 teaspoon Pistachio Extract
• 1 pinch Fine Sea Salt

Method –

The Macaron Shell –

1. Sieve the almond flour and icing sugar twice until only the fine flour remains without any lumps. Mix together in a bowl.
2. Add 55g of egg white to the flour mix. Mix until the dry ingredients become a paste like texture.
3. On medium to low heat boil the granulated sugar with water together. Do not stir, just let it bubble until it reaches 118 °C .
4. In a separate bowl whip the remaining 55g egg white until frothy and once the water/sugar mixture reaches the correct temperature pour into the frothy egg white slowly and from an edge of the bowl. This is to make sure that the water/sugar does not splash around or outside of the bowl. Mix while pouring at a high speed. Once the mixture starts becoming a thick merengue add the drops of your desired food coloring. And mix at low speed until the color is evenly distributed.
5. Pour in all the merengue mixture into the almond paste and mix with a spatula. This is a vital point in the baking – as you Must mix around the bowl and then cut through the dough making sure that there is air coming into the merengue and almond paste mixture. Don’t be too rough with the mixing. And mix only until the mixture falls off the spatula in a ribbon like manor.
6. At this point heat up your oven to 100 °C .
7. Pour the mixture into a piping bag and using a round plain nib make small disks about a 1/2 inch diameter on your baking sheet. You can always buy silicon sheets which are reusable and have the circle marking for you to pipe onto for ease. The silicone mats work just as well as regular baking paper. You should end up with around 30 macaron disks on one baking tray and this batch should make two trays.
8. Once all your Macarons are piped, tap your pan twice to release any air bubbles you may see. Sometimes it takes more taps – just make sure no bubbles appear and the disks look smooth. Leave for 20 min outside to rest. This period of resting helps the macaron create its ‘shell’ so once it starts baking that’s when the shell rises and you see the ‘foot’ which is a skirt like formation being created on the bottom of the macaron.
9. Once the 20 min are done turn your heat up to 150 °C and pop in one tray. (From my experience one tray at a time works best) leave to bake for 8 min, then open the oven for 10 sec exactly, close and bake for another 8 min.
10. Take out your Macaron shells and let cool on a cooling wrack. And now they are ready to be filled! YAY!

The Caramalised Pistachio & White Chocolate Swiss Merengue Buttercream (I need to create an abreviation for this name! lol) –

1. First we start with caramlising our pistachio – this is really simple and very quick! Get your Silpat ready on the side of your work bench. Take a small sauce pan and add in your pistachio (make sure they are unsalted! theres nothign worse than tasting salty buttercream) and your glucose syrup and add it into your saucepan.
2. Turn your heat on medium to high, and let the glucose take over the pistachio. Mic it around a little, and let it bubble for about 5 minutes, or until you start seeing a dark golden shade in the syrup.
3. Once you see that shade (or its passed roughly 5 minutes) pour the mixture onto your silpat and with a rubber heatproof spatula spread the nuts across, so none are ontop of each otehr or touching each other. You wantt o try and get an even coat as best as poissible.
4. Once the Caramlised Pistachio have cooled off completely and are hard like brittle, then break it into peoces, and chuck into your blender (if you dont have a blender place in a zip-lock bag and bash them with something really strong 🙂 ) Mix until very very fine. You can taste them, and they are just yummy as they are to eat! But resist! Bceuase we need them for our macaron! 😉
5. Now for the Swiss merengue buttercream – Place egg whites and sugar in a metal bowl of a stand mixer. Place bowl over a pan of simmering water, not touching the water. Whisk or stir constantly until sugar is dissolved and mixture comes to approximately 70ºC. If attempting without a thermometer, sugar should be dissolved with no graininess when a bit is rubbed between two fingers. It will be hot to the touch.
6. Immediately place the bowl on the stand mixer and whip on high using the whisk attachment until frosting has become thick and glossy, forming a stiff peak. Continue to whip frosting until the bowl feels room temperature to the touch, a total of about 10 minutes.
7. Switch the whisk attachment to the paddle attachment. With the mixer on low, drop in butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating until smooth after each addition. If frosting appears curdled or clumpy at any time, increase speed to medium-high and beat until smooth.
8. Add in your cooled/melted white chocolate and your caramalised pistachio, and whip on low speed until incorporated completely.
9. Add a food drops of green food colouring if you wish to make the green stand out a little more, I do this only for aesthetic reasons but its entirely up to you! 🙂
10. Once all has been incorporated, mix in extracts and pinch of salt. If needed, continue beating until smooth.
11. Your buttercream is ready to be piped into you macarons! YAY!

Decorating : For an extra jazz, I dipped half of each filled macaron into white chocolate and hten coated that part with some more caramalized crushed pistachio. YUM!

Enjoy! 🙂