Raspberry macaroons with raspberry buttercream, or with violet buttercream. According to The Great British Bake-Off baking icons that are Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood, mastery of macaroons means that you have the Magic Touch of Bakery. I don’t agree…but you do have to find a good recipe and stick to it TO THE LETTER!
I used this recipe by Ruth Clemens on the Pink Whisk site. She was on the first series of GBBO, so knows what she is talking about. If I’m lucky, a link to this recipe will appear. Just FOLLOW IT EXACTLY.
http://www.thepinkwhisk.co.uk/2011/01/how-to-make-perfect-macaroons.html
So, here are my recipe modifications.
Raspberry macaroons with raspberry or violet buttercream.
125g ground almonds
165g icing sugar
10g raspberry powder (see below)
110g egg white
75g caster sugar
Pink gel colour (see below)
Purple gel colour
Violet flavour (see below)
Follow the Pink Whisk recipe. I have detailed any additions below.
1) You should grind the almonds, icing sugar and raspberry powder together in the food processor.
2) Then, when it comes to colour, use pink gel colour (see below) to get quite a bright pink mix.
3)When you make your buttercream, 100g icing sugar and 50g butter should be enough for the batch. Mix in a couple of teaspoons of raspberry powder (to taste). Take half of the batch of buttercream and colour it purple and add 5 drops of violet flavour (see below).
Top tip: if you are not sure how much to mix your mixture, look at The Macaron Diaries – Macaronnage. It shows you what you are looking for in terms of consistency…and that the mixture is more robust than you think.
Unusual supplies and ingredients.
Here are details of unusual ingredients and where I get them. These are not product advertisements or endorsements as such. They are just what I used. Search around online for equivalents if you like.
Raspberry powder and violet flavour. Both can be obtained here:
http://www.gracefruit.com/food-grade-items/
Make sure you get food grade.
Gel colours. Most supermarkets have them. I used these:
http://www.lakeland.co.uk/17519/8-Icing-Colours
My next challenge is to make some more, take some pictures en route and post some additional making tips.
