Cookie Dough Macarons

I present to you Cookie Dough Macarons. Combining two of my favorite things: cookie dough, and macarons.

Cookie Dough Macarons

I like to get creative with macarons. They are like a canvas. And it’s up to me to paint them pretty, or the way I desire.

Which is why I have so many Macaron Recipes on my blog. Because of my abundance of macaron ideas.

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I just base it off of my sweet tooth really. And I have a huge sweet tooth, if you haven’t noticed by browsing through my recipes.

Cookie Dough Macarons

These Cookie Dough Macarons have my whole heart. They were such a treat to make, photograph, and enjoy!

Cookie Dough Macarons

So, today I want to talk about a frequently asked question: What’s better for baking macarons, parchment paper, or silicone mat?

And I have an answer for you.

Straight up, silicone mat.

Cookie Dough Macarons

Ok, so for the longest time, I used parchment paper, and I used a printed layout under the parchment paper. I had done that because I used to sell macarons, and I had to make them a size that would fit the boxes I had bought. So, I made my own templates.

Now, I am 100% converted to the silicone mat, though. There’s no comparison. They bake just so much better.

Cookie Dough Macarons

Sometimes, the parchment paper made my macaron bottoms bake uneven and become wrinkly, depending on the brand of parchment paper I was using.

Anyway, experiment with both, and choose what you think works best for you in your kitchen.

Baking is so particular, specially making macarons. It takes a lot of elements coming together to form the final, desired result. And in those elements, lies the details, the particularity.

Cookie Dough Macarons

After you’ve baked your Cookie Dough macarons in your mat/paper of choice, let them rest until cool.

And pipe some of the Cookie Dough Buttercream on top of half of the shells.

Top the buttercream with a few chocolate chips.

Cookie Dough Macarons

Place the other shell on top. Place Cookie Dough Macarons in the fridge for a bit for the filling to set.

Dip half of the macaron in the melted white chocolate, or candy melt of choice.

Cookie Dough Macarons

And then place some chocolate chips on top, for decoration. I used these cute mini chocolate chips.

Here are some more macaron recipes you may enjoy:

And click here to check out all of my macaron recipes!!

Cookie Dough Macarons

I would love to hear how your macaron journey is going. I often get messages, or get tagged by people who’ve made my recipes. And sometimes I get question about macarons on instagram too. It really motivates me to keep creating these macaron recipes, if I know I am helping people out there who also want to make great macarons. So if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, don’t hesitate to leave a comment down below or send me a dm on instagram.

I didn’t always make great macarons, and I did struggle for a while.

And by that I mean, get some of my tips, try them out, if they work, great, if not, learn from them, and move on to the next try.

Just an example, I’ve seen many bloggers swear by aging the egg whites before making the macarons, and I see no benefit in it. That doesn’t mean I am right and they’re wrong, or they are right and I am wrong. Simply means things work differently for each person. It’s all a matter of finding out what works best for you. And not just in macaron baking, but life in general.

Cookie Dough Macarons

Anyway, I hope you liked today’s Cookie Dough Macarons recipe.

I thoroughly enjoyed bringing this recipe to you.

Cookie Dough Macarons

Cookie Dough Macarons

Camila Hurst
These Cookie Dough Macarons are filled with Cookie Dough Buttercream, dipped in white chocolate, topped with mini chocolate chips.
5 from 3 votes
Prep Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes
0 minutes
Total Time 2 hours 10 minutes
Course Dessert
Cuisine American, French
Servings 26 macarons
Calories 200 kcal

Ingredients
  

Macaron Shells
  • 100 grams egg whites
  • 100 grams granulated sugar
  • 105 grams almond flour
  • 105 grams powdered sugar
  • A few drops of blue food coloring
Cookie Dough Buttercream
  • 1 cup confectioners’ sugar sifted 125 grams
  • 1/4 cup dark brown sugar 50 grams
  • 6 tbsp  unsalted butter softened 85 grams
  • 1/2 tsp  vanilla extract
  • 1 tbsp  milk
For coating
  • 113 grams white chocolate chopped, or candy melts
  • 1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

Instructions
 

Macaron Shells
  • Before you start, get all of the ingredients ready. Prepare a large piping bag, fitted with a large round tip.
  • Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mat.
  • Measure out all of the ingredients.
  • Sift the powdered sugar and almond flour together. Set aside.
  • Place the egg whites and granulated sugar in a heat proof bowl or in a double boiler. Over a pan of barely simmering water, whisk the whites and sugar until frothy and the sugar is completely melted. It will take a couple of minutes. You can test by touching the mixture between your fingers, and if you feel any sugar granules just keep whisking the mixture over the water bath.
  • Make sure the bottom of the bowl isn’t touching the simmering water.
  • Transfer the mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer.
  • With the whisk attachment, start whisking mixture on low for about 30 seconds, then gradually start increasing speed to medium. Whisk on medium for one to two minutes, until the mixture is white and starting to become fluffy. Raise the speed to high for a few minutes until stiff peaks are formed. Best way to check this is to keep your eye on the whites. Once they get glossy and you start seeing streaks formed by the whisk, it might be time to stop.
  • Whisk until stiff peaks have formed. When you pull your whip up, the peak should be stiff and shooting straight up, with possibly a slight bend at the top, but not bending to the side.
  • Pour the powdered sugar and almond flour into stiff whites.
  • Start folding gently forming a letter J with a spatula. Add the food coloring at this point.
  • How to know when to stop folding the batter: It’s time to stop folding when the batter is glossy and has a thick and flowing consistency. There are several ways to test this.
  • First, pick up some batter with the spatula and try to draw a figure 8 with the batter that is dripping off the spatula. If you can form several 8 figures without the batter breaking up, that’s one indication that it might be ready.
  • There’s another test you can do. I call it the Teaspoon test.
  • Grab a teaspoon of batter and spoon onto the parchment paper or silicon mat. Wait a minute to see how it behaves.
  • If the batter stays stiff, forming a point and doesn’t spread out, fold a little bit more, about 3 folds.
  • Test again.
  • Once the batter spreads out a bit and starts to look glossy and smooth on top, on the parchment paper, that means it's ready.
  • You don’t want your batter to be too runny either. So be careful not to overmix. It’s always best to undermix and test several times until the proper consistency has been achieved.
  • When you hold the spatula with batter on top of the bowl and the batter falls off the spatula slowly but effortlessly the batter is ready. The batter will keep flowing off the spatula non-stop, but not too quickly.
  • Transfer the batter to the piping bag.
  • Place the piping bag directly 90 degrees over the center of each macaron template. Apply gentle pressure and carefully pipe for about 3 seconds, and then quickly pull the bag up twisting slightly.
  • Once you’ve piped as many circles as you could, bang the trays against the counter a few times each. This will release air bubbles that are in the batter and prevent the macaron shells from cracking.
  • Use a toothpick to pop any air bubbles in the surface of the shells.
  • Let the trays sit for a while so the shells will dry out a little bit. I usually leave about 20-40 minutes, depending on how humid the day is. You’ll know they’re ready when you gently touch the surface of a macaron and it seems dry.
  • Pre-heat the oven to 300°F.
  • Bake one tray at a time.
  • Bake for 5 minutes, rotate tray.
  • Bake for 5 more minutes. Rotate again.
  • I bake each tray for about 15 to 20 minutes.
  • When baked, the macarons will have a deeper color and formed feet. And be peeling off the mat easily.
  • Remove from the oven and bake the other tray.
  • Let the macarons cool down before proceeding with the filling.
Cookie Dough Buttercream
  • Place the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer. Cream for 30 seconds at high speed.
  • Slowly start to add the brown sugar. Cream for 60 seconds.
  • Turn mixer off. Add sifted powdered sugar to the bowl. Mix on low.
  • Once incorporated, raise speed to high and cream for another 30-60 seconds.
  • Add the milk, and the vanilla.
  • If the consistency needs any adjusting, simply add more milk if the buttercream is too stiff, or add more powdered sugar if the consistency is too runny.
  • Place the buttercream in a piping bag.
To assemble
  • Pipe filling on half of the shells. Top with a few mini chocolate chips.
  • Top with another shell.
  • Place the macarons in the fridge until buttercream is set.
  • Melt the white chocolate, or candy melts, dip half of the macarons in. Top with a few mini chocolate chips.
  • Let it set. It’s always best to let macarons refrigerate overnight before serving, because that’s when the shells mature.
Storage
  • Store in the fridge for up to 1 week, well covered. Or in the freezer for up to 1 month.

Notes

Food coloring: Make sure to use gel food coloring. I use Wilton Color Right Performance Food Coloring Set. If you are a beginner macaron baker, I recommend going easy on the food coloring, as it can alter your batter a lot, and it can take extra mixing time, specially if you continue to add the food coloring as you do the macaronage.
Scale: Please use a scale when measuring the ingredients for accuracy.
Macaron amount: it will vary greatly depending on how big you pipe the shells, and on how runny or thick the batter is.
Baking time/temperature: Baking time and temperature will vary according to your own oven. I recommend experimenting with your oven to find out the best time, temperature, position of the baking tray.
Oven thermometer: Make sure to have an oven thermometer to bake macarons. It’s one of the most important things about making macarons. Home ovens aren’t accurate at all at telling the temperature, and even a slight 5 degree difference can make or break your whole batch.
Tray rotation: Lots of bakers don’t have to rotate the trays 180 degrees in the oven every 5 minutes, but I do have to with my oven, or I will get lopsided macarons. Please adjust this according to your oven.
Keyword cookie dough, macarons

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27 Comments

    1. Hello Michelle! The brand of mats in the pictures is called ForBake. They have sent me those mats, however, if you purchase them I recommend purchasing two sets, because they sell the macaron mats with just one having the template, and the other mat is plain without the macaron template, and for pretty much every single macaron recipe out there (including mine) you are going to need at least 2 mats with the template to pipe your macarons.
      here is the link https://www.amazon.com/Silicone-Macaroon-Liner-set-Nonstick-Heat-Resistant/dp/B07JN12643/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=forbake+mats&qid=1555180901&s=gateway&sr=8-1-spell
      They are really good mats, and I do recommend them, the only issue is that you would have to buy two sets.

  1. Hi! Can you clarify about the length of time the batter should rest before baking. How long would you let them rest, before baking, on a humid day?

    1. It really depends on several factors: how humid it is, how much you’ve mixed the batter, how stiff you whipped the meringue, etc…
      I suggest you rest them until you can touch the macaron and it will have formed a skin, and it will be dry to the touch. During winter time, sometimes that means 15 minutes for me, but during summer could mean 45 minutes, or even more.
      With my vegan macarons, I always gotta dry them longer too.
      What you don’t want to do is to over-rest them too much, say leave them drying for 2 hours. As soon as they form a skin and are completely dry to the touch, start baking the trays one by one. If you find that even after 2 hours your macarons aren’t getting dry, then there’s probably an issue with the batter being overmixed, or the meringue being underwhipped.
      Hope this helped! Thank you for your question
      Have a great day!

  2. Can you freeze macs that have candy coating or ganache on the top of them? (I’m making some that I want to pipe a design on the top of the macaron with candy coating.) Or would you recommend doing the top decoration before serving instead of before storing?

    1. Hey there Melody, I actually froze some of these macarons! And they had frozen beautifully! So I think it’s totally fine that you freeze the finished product!! Thank you so much for your question!!

  3. HI there! I recently started following your recipes and making macarons. I started with the pistachio, and just gave the cookie dough a try. Question – what food coloring do you use? Or how did you get your blue to stay so blue? After mine baked, they look light blue, instead of the deep blue color.

    1. I use wilton gel food colors 🙂 always go for gel colors. and I find that sometimes you just have to add quite a bit, like a teaspoon or so, depending on the color you are trying to achieve. Always remember that the color of the batter will fade and get duller as the macarons bake. Also, try to add the color right at the beginning of folding, because often times, as you try to adjust the color and get it to be more intense, you will be adding more food coloring and doing more stirring and folding than necessary, and the batter might turn out over mixed. hope this helps.

  4. 5 stars
    I made these a couple of days ago and just fell in love with how much they resemble cookie dough! Even my sister who doesn’t like macarons ate about half a dozen! Thank you so much for this recipe ❤️

  5. Hello, Camila! I have some macarons to do for a gender reveal and I wanted to dip the whole macaron to have it covered in chocolate and reveal the color of the mac on the inside. I am using an ice cream stick so as I can dip the macarons easier but I was wondering if I could just simply melt plain milk chocolate, dip the macs and then let them cool in the fridge? Or should I melt chocolate and add oil to make more of a glaze and dip the macarons? I’m just wondering what could work best so the chocolate doesn’t sweat or melt too much when the gender reveal happens. Any advice on what could work best for this?? Thank you so much in advance.

    1. I recommend getting good quality chocolate for starters. I like callebaut, I don’t add anything such as oil or shortening. Some people add shortening, and some people will temper the chocolate. Tempering the chocolate will prevent it from sweating and melting. So if you really wanna be sure that would be a good route to take.

  6. I don’t use the heating method for my egg whites I thought that was called the Italian method? But do you ever use the cartons of egg whites or do you only use the white from the whole egg. I love your recipes but am wondering also if the ingredient ratio is the same when putting egg whites directly in the mixer! Thanks for all the great ideas!

    1. the ratios arent the same when putting the egg whites directly in the mixer. that would be the french method and requires different ratios. My method here is actually the swiss.

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