Passion Fruit Macarons (plus video)
Hello friends! Today I bring another Macaron flavor! Passion Fruit Macarons! Yay! I absolutely love passion fruit desserts! Check out the recipe, and make sure to watch the video in this page or on my youtube channel, showing you how to make these macarons!
Have you ever had passion fruit before? Well I grew up in Brazil, born and raised, and passion fruit is actually native to Brazil. So it’s really easy to come by this fruit at the market. However, here in the US, where I live now, it’s very rare to find passion fruit at the store.
Last week, I found some passion fruit at my local grocery store. They often carry specialty and imported exotic fruit from other countries, and I remember seeing passion fruit there once before. So my heart skipped a beat, and I filled up my basket with passion fruits!
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So yes, it may be possible to still find the actual fresh passion fruit, even if you live in the country side, in a small town like I do.
However, if you can’t find any fresh passion fruit around you, and you still want to make this, I am here to give you some good news!
You can easily find passion fruit pulp either at the frozen section of many grocery stores, or online! I get mine on amazon!
This is the one I usually get, and it’s Brazilian.
However, this time around, I was unable to get the Maguary, because it wasn’t going to arrive in time, so I had to resort to a different brand, and I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the puree I got from the other brand, which I am linking below.
It is a huge can, and it has way more passion fruit pulp than you will need for this Passion Fruit Macarons recipe. To me, that’s no issue! Since I adore passion fruit desserts, and this pulp will for sure be put to good use. I actually froze part of it, so now I have passion fruit pulp in my freezer ready for when the craving for passion fruit desserts strike.
It’s important to look for a passion fruit pulp that doesn’t have any sugar added. If you can only get passion fruit pulp, or juice, with sugar added to it, then omit the sugar in the curd recipe.
Actually, it’s pretty easy to come by Goya passion fruit juice at most grocery stores in the Latin Food aisle. And don’t get me wrong, the juice is delicious and I could drink a gallon of it, but it’s highly sweetened.
This passion fruit curd is so so good, you’ll probably want to eat it with a spoon! But leave some to fill the Passion Fruit Macarons, will you!
Here are some tips on how to make the Passion Fruit curd:
- Cream the butter, sugar, and eggs in the bowl of a mixer, as you can see on the video. Then add the passion fruit pulp to the mixture. You will notice that the mixture will immediately separate. Fret not! Transfer it to a small saucepan and place it over low heat.
- LOW heat! From medium low to low! Do not let the curd boil.
- Do not stop stirring the curd.
- Keep cooking for 5-10 minutes, stirring constantly, and taking care to not let the curd come to a boil.
- The curd should be thick and coating the back of a spoon with a thick layer of curd.
- Place the curd in a heat proof container in the fridge for at least 6 hours! It will get very thick in the fridge!
By requests, on the Passion Fruit Macarons video, I have included the exact number of the setting I use on my KitchenAid when whipping the meringue for the macarons.
As you may know, I use the Swiss method to make my macarons. And lately I’ve had a few readers ask me for this info, so I decided to include it in the video!
If you have any questions about macarons, feel free to ask me, send me a dm on instagram or an email, or comment on my blog, or youtube channel.
And if your question is about troubleshooting, it always helps if you include a picture of your macarons, to make it easier to pin point the problem.
I have over 50 macaron recipes on my blog!
Here are some more Macaron recipes and ideas you might like:
- Lemon Macarons
- Kiwi Macarons
- Balsamic Caramel and Strawberry Macarons
- Key Lime Raspberry Macarons
- Pomegranate Macarons
- Pear Macarons
- Raspberry Macarons
- Apple Macarons
If you have never tried any passion fruit desserts, I really recommend you give this one a go. The curd by itself will totally convince you! My favorite dessert growing up was passion fruit mousse, which may be an upcoming dessert for the blog.
Also, please note that I have recently increased the amount of dry ingredients (almond flour and powdered sugar) on my standard macaron recipe. It makes a slight difference in the shells, and I am super pleased with the change.
Have a lovely day, and thank you so much for reading my blog!
This is the air-tight container I use to store my macarons in the fridge and in the freezer. They are really great for freezing macarons.
These are the piping bags I have been using for the past few months. They’re awesome!
Passion Fruit Macarons
Ingredients
Macaron Shells
- 100 grams egg whites 3.5 oz
- 100 grams granulated sugar 3.5 oz
- 105 grams almond flour 3.7 oz
- 105 grams powdered sugar 3.7 oz
- Food coloring I used yellow
Passion Fruit Curd
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 2 large egg yolks
- 1/4 cup passion fruit pulp*
Marshmallow Frosting
- 2 egg whites
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar 100 grams, 3.5 oz.
- 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
To assemble
- 1/4 cup white chocolate chips optional to drizzle on top
- Passion fruit seeds optional
Instructions
Macaron Shells
- Before you start, get all of your ingredients ready. Prepare a large piping bag, fitted with a large round tip. Set aside.
- Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicon mat.
- I use a baking mat with the macaron template already in it. You can make your own or print it from the internet, and just place it under silicon mat, or parchment paper. I recommend using a silicone mat.
- Measure out all of your ingredients.
- Sift powdered sugar and almond flour together. Set aside.
- Place egg whites and granulated sugar in a heat proof bowl or in a double boiler. Over a pan of simmering water, whisk the whites and sugar until frothy and sugar completely melted. It will take a couple minutes. You can test by touching the mixture between your fingers, and if you feel any sugar granules just keep whisking mixture over the water bath.
- Make sure the bottom of the bowl isn’t touching the simmering water.
- Transfer 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 mixture is white and starting to become fluffy. Raise 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 form a bird’s beak shape, but shouldn’t be falling to the side, the peak should be stiff, forming a slightly curved shape at the top.
- Pour 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, if using.
- 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, I pick up some batter with my 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 a bit, I start folding 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, I transfer my mixture to the piping bag.
- 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.
- The best way I can describe this stage being perfect is when you hold the spatula with batter on top of the bowl and the batter falls off the spatula slowly but effortlessly. The batter will keep flowing off the spatula non-stop, but not too quickly.
- Transfer batter to a piping bag fitted with a round tip.
- Place piping bag directly 90 degrees over the center of each macaron template. Apply equal 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.
- Let your 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 6 minutes, rotate the tray if needed.
- I bake each tray for a total of 18-20 minutes.
- When baked, the macarons will have a deeper color and formed feet. And they will be coming off the mat easily, and with a completely formed bottom.
- Remove from the oven and bake the other tray.
- Let the macarons cool down before proceeding with the filling.
Passion Fruit Curd
- Cream the butter with an electric mixer for about 30 seconds at medium speed.
- Add the sugar and salt to the butter and cream for another minute.
- Add the egg yolks, one at a time, creaming until each egg yolk is incorporated before adding the next one.
- Pour the passion fruit pulp in the bowl and mix. Mixture will seem curdled and separated, and that’s ok.
- Transfer it to a small saucepan.
- Start cooking at low heat, stirring non-stop with a spatula.
- Keep cooking for 5-10 minutes. Don’t let the mixture boil, and don’t stop stirring.
- The curd should be thick, coating the back of a spoon.
- Depending on how high or low the heat is, the time will vary. I suggest keeping at low, or medium-low heat. You don’t want the eggs to boil, and you don’t want the mixture to stick to the bottom of the pan, which will easily happen if the heat is too high, or if you stop stirring.
- Once the curd is ready, pour it into a heat-proof bowl, and let it cool down.
- Place it in the fridge for at least 6 hours to chill through and get thick.
Marshmallow frosting
- Mix all ingredients, except for the vanilla extract together in the bowl of a stand mixer.
- Set the bowl over a pot of simmering water over medium heat.
- Whisk mixture while it sits in the double boiler.
- Keep whisking over simmering water until it reaches 140F.
- That way the egg whites will be in a safe temperature to be consumed.
- Move bowl to the mixer.
- Whip with the whisk attachment for about 5 minutes on high speed.
- Add vanilla and mix to combine.
To assemble
- Pipe the marshmallow frosting around the edges of the bottom shell macarons.
- Fill with the passion fruit curd. It makes it easier to place the curd in a piping bag and pipe it in the middle.
- Place another shell on top.
- Drizzle white chocolate and top with passion fruit seeds, if desired.
Storage
- These macarons will store nicely in the fridge for up to 5 days. The marshmallow frosting doesn’t keep for too long, so I don’t recommend freezing them.
Notes
. 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.
Wow this looks amazing
Wanting to try this
Should I switch on the fan while baking n pre heating
I dont use a convection oven but typically yes you could turn the fan on, make sure to turn the temperature down by at least 10%. Youll have to play around with temperatures and baking time and find out what works best for your oven.
Seu site é muito recomendado, e tenho amado suas receitas. Mas quando eu vi esta fiquei apaixonada kkk. Eu amo maracuja tbm e o fato que vc é brasileira melhor ainda! Duas perguntas, daria pra fazer sem o marshmallow buttercream? E seria possiviel user um mousse de maracuja inves do curd?
Muito obrigada Nina!! 🙂 eu faco uma com ganache esta aqui:https://www.piesandtacos.compassionfruit-macarons-with-passionfruit-ganache/
Hi Camila!
I made such a wonderful lilikoi curd with your recipe, and no joke everyone loves it!!!!
Do you think the recipe could be used for another fruit juice as well? I’m wanting to try with grapefruit, already failed it once with another recipe 🙁 What do you think?
Yes it will work with other fruit juice as well 🙂 so happy you liked the curd recipe!
oh it is SO delicious! I shall try the grapefruit, thank you! 🙂 I loooove your blog so so much!
Thank you so much! That makes me so happy!
Thank you! I made it with the seeds and the curd is delicious but it would be so much better without the seeds. I’m making another batch right now.
Oh and that’s awesome that you have access to fresh passion fruit from the garden!! That’s really amazing!
I am using real passion fruit from the garden. Do I just scoop the pulp out and use it or so I have to remove the seeds from the pulp?
for the curd, I would drain the passionfruit to extract the pulp.First place all the seeds and pulp in a small pan and heat it gently, then pass it through a sieve to be able to remove the seeds. heating it gently will help remove the seeds.
Instead of using it for the center can I add the chilled pulp into buttercream?
You could, but if you add too much, it will make the buttercream runny, or maybe even make it separate and curdle. And the amount you will add might not be enough to give the buttercream a really strong passion fruit flavor.
I attempted this recipe last week and was semi successful, but want to try again. I still have the passionfruit curd in the fridge, how long can i leave it in the fridge and still use it?
Thanks 😊
up to 4 days
Very nice, but it’s impossible to achieve that mustardy yellow with just yellow food coloring
yes it is. I used just yellow food coloring. I think it was buttercup yellow by wilton gel colors.
Very nice, but it’s impossible to achieve that mustardy yellow with just yellow food coloring
Hi, I would like to ask why I out the macaron into the oven and some of them will pop up ?
What do you mean by pop up? Like explode and crack? or the feet get too big? Do you have pics to send me?
Have been doing the French method for years but I’m excited to try these using the Swiss method. A couple of questions: when heading the sugar/egg yolks for the shells, is it just until the sugar metls or do you need to bring it to a certain temp (140?–and btw latest food safe regulations now say 160). Also, with the marshmallow, how do these freeze/defrost?
You should only heat it until the sugar melts, no need to get to a certain temperature, because the macarons will be baked later.
Also I don’t recommend freezing them because of the curd and because of the marshmallow frosting. the marshmallow frosting doesn’t freeze great, and the curd might make the shells soggy.
Thanks Beth!
Thanks so much. Yes, I was concerned about the potential for sogginess from the curd as well the marshmallow freezing concern. Might opt for a different filling but will for sure be trying your method for the shells and the curd as well.
Hi, i was just wondering if you can use fresh passion fruit in this recipe instead of the puree?
For sure, just obtain the same amount of pulp from fresh passion fruits 🙂
Thank you!!
I always have a bag of frozen pulp in the freezer since I am obsessed with drinking passion fruit juice. If I want to use the frozen pulp, should I defrost it first?
Yes You should thaw it first 🙂
That color! Wow! So pretty! These sound amazing!
Ficaram sensacionais, a cor muito convidativa desses macarons. Fantásticos!!!!!
Obrigada!!! tambem gostei bem alegres!!! ☀️