If you follow me on instagram, you may notice I have a slight macaron obsession. There is something so complete in the bite sized dessert. They are too rich to gorge on and even this chocoholic’s sweet tooth is very much satisfied after a single macaron. I happen to live next to the cutest place with daily macarons and for awhile, buying one (to match my outfit…ha!) was a highlight. I finally tried to make a go of it on my own, mixing several different recipes since I didn’t want a vanilla macaron died a pumpkin color. I want a true pumpkin macaron because the leaves are turning and falling and it is officially the season of all things pumpkin.
In the interest of full disclosure, I made my macarons too thin and next time I would use a silpat pan which means buying one. Nonetheless, thin or thick, these little babies were delicious. The Pumpkin Spice Creamy Filling was so yummy. For a sophisticated, satisfying dessert, challenge yourself with this recipe.
(As an aside, you are supposed/should weigh your ingredients. I don’t have a scale so I had to google ounces to cups and did the best I could. But with something as delicate as macarons, by all means weigh it. I am including the measurements in ounces so you can weigh and if you do not have a scale, you can do your own math because mine cannot be depended on.)
Ingredients
- 4 ounces (115g) almond flour or blanched almonds
- 8 ounces (230g) powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
- 5 ounces egg whites (144g), temperature and age not important!
- 2½ ounce (72g) sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp (2g) kosher salt
- Pumpkin Spice Creamy Filling:
- ¼ cup butter
- 3 tablespoons pumpkin puree
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp pumpkin pie spice
- Pinch of salt
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp whipping cream
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 300° and have ready a large (18”) pastry bag, fitted with a plain tip, along with two sheet pans lined with parchment paper or a silpat.
- Sift together almond flour, powdered sugar and pumpkin pie spice in a medium bowl and set aside. Make sure it all goes through your sifter.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the egg whites, sugar and salt and turn the mixer to medium (4 on a Kitchen Aid). Whip for 3 minutes. They will not seem especially foamy at that point. Increase the speed to medium-high (7 on a Kitchen Aid) and whip another 3 minutes, then crank the speed to 8 for go another 3 minutes. (I did this with my hand mixer and was still able to produce a meringue)
- Turn the mixer off and add in vanilla extract and whip for a final minute on the highest speed. At the end of this minute, you should have a very stiff, dry meringue. It should pull of the mixer in peaks.
- Dump in the dry ingredients and fold them until they are incorporated into the meringue
- Use a piping bag (or a ziploc like I did) to pipe the circle on the silpat/parchment paper
- Bake for 18 minutes, or until you can cleanly peel the parchment paper away from a macaron. Let cool on the pans before peeling the macarons from the parchment.
- Filling:
- In a standing mixer fitted with the paddle, beat the butter and pumpkin at medium-high speed until smooth. Beat in extract, pumpkin pie spice and salt until well combined. Again I did this with a handheld mixer.
- Add powdered sugar; beat at medium-low speed until most of the sugar is moistened, about 1 minute. Scrape down the bowl and add heavy cream. Beat at medium speed until incorporated, about 20 seconds, then increase speed to medium-high until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes, scraping down bowl once or twice.
- Match up macarons in pairs based on size and shape. Fill a pastry bag (or ziploc) fitted with the buttercream and pipe a quarter sized mound of buttercream into half of the shells, then sandwich them with the other half. (I piped on more than this because the cream filling was delicious!)
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