Lavender White Chocolate, Raspberry Cream & Rainbow Buttercream French Macarons

Cooking is my meditation, (not medication; that’s sugar) but I also like to have fun in the kitchen. I love creating new tastes and experiment with old and new recipes. So today I made French Macarons. The first being a light purple cookie with a lavender white chocolate filling. The second, pink colored cookies filled with a basic buttercream icing and a dollop of raspberry seedless preserves. Lastly, I made a half purple, half blue cookie filled with an almond buttercream filling. These cookies, even though difficult to master perfectly every time, are a fun little show stoppers. It is fun to try new recipes and mix colors with different fillings.  Enjoy!

I use this universal recipe for a fail proof French Macaron. To see full recipe and step by step instructions see my earlier post for “French Macarons” where I Cover Lemon macarons  https://pottsboilingover.com/2017/06/23/the-french-macaron/

Ingredients:

3/4 Cup Powdered Sugar
3/4 Cup Ground Almonds
2 Large Egg Whites, room temperature
1/2 Cup Granulated Sugar
gel food coloring

Lavender Macarons:

After making the purple batter, while the macarons are setting, one hour before baking, begin the white chocolate filling: ½ cup heavy whipping cream heated to boiling in the microwave and poured onto 2 cups white chocolate chips. Cover with plastic wrap for 2 minutes. After, remove wrap and stir until all chocolate is melted and then add ¼ tsp to ½ tsp food grade lavender. Stir and let cool before piping into cookies. I say start small and gradually add more the lavender to taste. A little goes a very long way. Keep in fridge to store.

Raspberry Cream Macarons:

After the pink macarons are cooled here is how to finish them off: make a simple icing with powdered sugar and either milk or water. You want it on the thicker side as you want to give height to the macarons. Using the pastry bag with a small tip make small circles along the edges to create a well in the middle for just a dollop of raspberry preserves.

Rainbow Almond Buttercream Macarons:

Depending on how many cookies you want to make, make either one batch or two full batches (one color each). For one batch spit the white batter in the end between two bowls  and stir in one color each. Be careful not to over stir or flat cookies you’ll get. Then scoop each bowl into pastry bag one spoon of each at a time. Then swirl onto parchment. Before you let the macarons set for the hour you can dress the cookes up with sugars or sprinkles. Be creative. The way I make the cookies was made one whole batch of purple and set aside and made one while batch of blue because I wanted over two dozen cookies. Then scooped into a pastry bag.

Secret time: While the colorful cookies are sleeping, before the oven, I mixed store bought buttercream with a little bit of almond flavoring, for taste, and filled the cookies with that for a light colored filling. 😉 Shhhhh.