Coconut Butter Cream Macaron

I have to admit that I make Macarons quite often, and I am not the only one who would normally finish eating them.

I love the process of making them and the sense of achievement when I see the Macarons being gobble down by my hubby and family in law :)

This is my latest creation, the filling is good, I left the macaron shell too dry before popping them in oven, and they were too dry, some of them cracked. Not pretty!

As I am not a big fan of full sugar shot sweetness, I reduce the sugar in the filling and the sweetness from the shell balance it up perfectly.

FOR THE MACARON SHELL

Ingredients:
1 room temperatured egg white(39-40g)
50g icing sugar
27g ground almond
3g coconut flake
30g castor sugar
some coconut flake & white iridescent food colouring in powder

Method:
1. Put ground almond, coconut flakes and icing sugar in a food processor or a small blender. Blend them finely.

2. Sift the blended mixture and set aside

3. With an electric beater, Beat the egg white, start from low speed and increase slowly to maximum speed. Beat until frothy (you will see lots of fine bubbles)

4. Now it's the time to add in the castor sugar, add half of the sugar, continue to beat in maximum speed for around 2 minutes, add in the other half, continue until you get very stiff peak.

5. Mix the dry ingredients into the egg whites. This process is called Macaronage. Start folding with a rubber spatula. When you get smooth shiny mixture, stop folding, lift the mixture with spatula, if the mixture falls back slowly in the bowl means you're good to go. You could also check if the lines formed from the lifted mixture, they should slowly disappear in within 30 seconds. At this stage you're good to go. Do not over fold, it will be too liquid and becoming very hard to pipe.
if you're unsure, you could refer to my basic macaron recipe as a guide HERE

6. Line the baking tray with the parchment paper.

7. Fill your piping bag , pipe your macaron (about 2 cm diameter) it should spread a bit as it settles. The point should slowly disappear if the mixture is the right consistency.
If not you could hit the bottom of the tray with your hand to smooth the point out)



8. Sprinkle the Macaron shell with iridescent food colouring powder and then sprinkle some coconut flakes on top.


9. Let your macarons sit for about 30minutes. This will depend on the humidity in your house and the day. Try touching the macaron softly, after 30mins. it should not stick to your hand.

10. Heat your oven to 150 C on the (heating on the top only). When the oven is ready, put your macaron at the very bottom shelf. Bake for 12 minutes, check them in the mid time of 6 minutes, the feets should already start forming. Turn the baking tray to the opposite direction to allow even baking. When the 6 mins is up, change the heating setting of your oven to Bottom only. This will help cooking the macaron and rise the feet more. Bake for another 6 minutes. You can test if the macaron is cook, touch softly on the shell and when the macaron doesn't slide on the feet, it's cooked. if it's not add another 1 mins each time and check.

(This is the method i found the best that works for me after few trial and error. I baked with heating the oven top and bottom and i had crack macarons. Having said that, every oven is slightly different than another, so please adjust accordingly)


11. Let the macaron cool down before removing them. You could wet your working area and slide the baking sheet on it to speed up the cooling process, but do not let it sit there too long, if not the macarons will become soggy. Other wise you can leave them cool at room temperature and remove them.

COCONUT BUTTER CREAM FILLING
As I did this in a small quantity, it's not really easy to beat up an egg yolk in a big mixing bowl. I suggest you using a smaller mixing bowl.

Ingredients:
1 egg yolk (from the white used for the macaron shell)
15g sugar
75g butter (room temperature, cut into small cubes)
10g coconut cream

Method:
1. In a mixing bowl, add in egg yolk and sugar, beat with electric beater until the egg yolk fluffs up and turns pale.

2. Add the soften butter one piece at a time, and beat till incorporate after each addition. Repeat until all the butter are blended in. The texture should be creamy.

3. Add in coconut cream, beat again until well combined.

4. Pipe them immediately into one macaron shell and close up with another.

5. After you pipe up all macaron shells, put them in air tight container. Keep chill.


6. The macarons are best eaten the next day. Bring out from the fridge 10 mins before serving.