Easter Macaroons

We wanted to try Two Chicks egg white in a carton so I thought some little macaroons for Easter teatime would go down a treat. Macaroons are really easy to whip up and personalise with whatever flavours/colours you like! I made mine a light spring pink with a delicate vanilla flavouring. You’ll see from the pictures that the texture of my macaroons look a bit dodge; I’m blaming the weird egg whites and not the fact that I couldn’t be arsed to use a piping bag…However, despite them looking a bit spesh they still taste really nice so who cares.

Ingredients (makes 12 paired Macaroons)

2 medium egg whites, at room temp

150g caster sugar

120g ground almonds

120g icing sugar

Drop vanilla extract

Drop of food colouring

Preheat the oven to 140⁰C/ Gas Mark 1. Cover two trays with baking parchment. Draw 12 even circles with a diameter of 5cm on each tray.

Mix the egg white, caster sugar and any food colouring into a large mixing bowl, whisking until the mixture is thick.

Combine the almonds and icing sugar, adding a spoonful at a time to the egg white mixture. Continue whisking until you have a shiny, thick mixture. (Mine shown here is a terrible example, again, clearly the egg whites fault…)

Pipe (or if lazy like me, spoon) mixture into the ready drawn circles. Leave the trays out at room temperature for about 10-15 minutes so that the macaroons can form a sort of skin, which stops them from spreading in the oven.

Bake for 25 minutes until firm. Cool on a wire rack.

Now for the filling! I wanted to try out more of the carton egg white so I decided to make a whoopie pie filling instead of the usual cream for macaroons.

Vanilla Swiss Buttercream

115g unsalted butter, softened

1 ½ large egg whites

50g caster sugar

½ tbsp golden syrup

Drop vanilla extract

Scraping vanilla bean paste

(Icing sugar is necessary)

In a small bowl cream the butter until fluffy. In a larger bowl combine the egg white, caster sugar, golden syrup and vanilla paste. Place the bowl over a saucepan of lightly simmering water and whisk continuously until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is frothy and opaque.

Take off the heat and continue to whisk until fluffy and cooled. Add the butter a spoonful at a time, whisking well. The mixture might curdle but will come back together again.

My buttercream seemed really sloppy so I added some sieved icing sugar until it had a consistency that kept its shape.

Sandwich two macaroons with a spoonful of buttercream and serve on a pretty plate!

Happy Easter : )