Sunday, May 13, 2012

Cherry Cheesecake Macarons



It's been a while since I made macarons, but I have three recipes to share with you. This one was better in theory, I'm afraid, but I'll still share the recipe. Maybe you can improve on it for me? Cherry is one of my favorite flavors, but it's pretty hard to incorporate into baked goods. I use a great cherry syrup here, but the downside is that it's also very sweet, and since you need a lot of sugar to make the filling firm, the filling turns out really sweet. A little too sweet, actually. 

As you can see, I didn't color my shells, but feel free to do so if you want. I am not that comfortable with using food coloring - if you're going to make something from scratch, with high quality ingredients - why willingly add stuff to it? I couldn't resist drawing a few simple cherries to show the flavor, though.

Cherry cheesecake macarons 
15-20 filled cookies

3 egg whites, at room temperature
2 tbsp caster sugar
200 g powdered sugar
110 g almonds, blanched

Combine powdered sugar and almonds in your food processor, and grind until very fine. Sieve. Re-grind any lumps or big pieces of almonds. Mix carefully (they tend to separate a little bit when sieving, since the sugar falls through first.)

Beat egg whites and sugar until you have a thick, glossy meringue. Don't overbeat. Stir in the almond-sugar powder, and fold together. Don't overmix this - most seem to say that you should use less than 50 strokes. (You can try it by dolloping a little batter on a baking sheet - if the peak falls down, it's ready. If it doesn't, try a few more strokes. The batter will thin as you keep stirring it.)

Pipe small rounds on a baking sheet with baking paper. Leave at room temperature for 30-60 minutes, to form a skin.

Bake at 150°C for 12-15 minutes. (I have a convection oven, and 12 minutes was perfect for me.) Let them cool completely before filling. Unused shells can be frozen, or kept in an air-tight container for a day or so.

Cherry Cheesecake filling:
50 g butter, at room temperature
120 g cream cheese
about 200 g powdered sugar
1-2 tbsp cherry syrup

If you have it, add some lemon zest. This makes a really sweet filling, and it must be really cold to be pipe-able. In comparison, it's a lot softer than many others I've made. 

Whisk all ingredients to a smooth, fluffy frosting. Cool until it's firm enough to pipe or spread. Spread on half the macaron shells, and top with the remaining ones. 

Recipe in Swedish: 


4 comments:

Cupcakesfluffan said...

Så fina de blev

Mattias said...

Mmmmmm. Fan, körsbär var längesen. Jag glömmer alltid bort hur gott det är, tror jag är skrämd av äckligt körsbärsgodis.

welshcathy said...

If you like cherry with chocolate try these - http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2005/10/french-chocolat/

Made them with a cherry chocolate filling based on the prune filling method.
I swapped the prunes for a tin of black cherries, well drained and blitzed, added a little extra chocolate for a firmer consistency - turned out delish :)

Anne said...

Oh, thanks for the tip! It's hard to find cherries here, even tinned - but perhaps it'll work with cherry preserves of some kind. I'll have to experiment.