Peppermint Macarons

Hello friends! Today I bring some Christmas Macarons for you! These amazing and festive Peppermint Macarons!

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This is the season for baking these Peppermint Macarons! Christmas is everywhere, and it definitely has reached my kitchen!

This week I made several Christmas Macaron flavors! I can’t wait to show them all to you.

Last month I showed you my Eggnog Macarons, which are also perfect Christmas Macarons.

And now these Peppermint Macarons came to join the Christmas party!

I am feeling the Christmas spirit! I’ve been baking so much this past month!

As you can see, I’ve been very busy with my Christmas Cookie box, and my Vegan Christmas Cookie box, and other desserts such as my No-Bake Flan, and Apple Dulce de Leche Cheesecake, plus many many cookies and macarons.

So, for these Peppermint Macarons, I made a simple Peppermint Buttercream filling, with peppermint extract, plus some crushed candy canes on top of the buttercream filling.

You can find crushed candy cane pretty much anywhere.

Peppermint candy is fun to use in baking, you can add it to brownies, cookies, and pretty much anything. It’s perfect for Christmas baking, it adds a fun and crunchy touch to your baked goods.

I only added a little bit of peppermint candy to the filling, but it was enough to give the Peppermint Macarons a nice refreshing crunch when you bit into it!

And about the red marbled shells, it’s very simple to obtain that effect.

I was going to take some pictures, however, I made these at night, so I couldn’t take any.

But hear me out, it’s pretty easy.

Grab the piping bag and put it inside of a cup, wrapping the outside of the bag around the top of the cup, so the bag is held open. (You can see me do this all the time on my macaron videos on Youtube, when I am ready to transfer the batter to a piping bag)

Then, dip a small brush in some red food coloring. Don’t add too much, just a very little dab of food coloring.

Brush 4 vertical lines from the bottom of the bag, where the round piping tip is, all the way to the top. Make sure the lines are spaced out evenly, at 12 o’clock, 3 o’clock, 6 o’clock, and 9 o’clock.

Also, it may seem like the brush strokes are faded dotted lines, but trust me, once those little drops of food coloring get in contact with the macaron batter, the color will become very vibrant.

Make sure you don’t add a lot of food coloring, or it will alter the macaron shells, by making them too wet.

After brushing the lines on the bag, pour the macaron batter in. Then pipe the macarons on the baking sheets.

Here are some more Macaron ideas for your Christmas baking:

• Cranberry Macarons
• Apple Macarons
• Pear Macarons
• German Chocolate Macarons
• Salted Caramel Macarons
• Pumpkin Cheesecake Macarons
• Caramel Popcorn Macarons
• Cherry Macarons
• Toffee Macarons

I hope you loved these Peppermint Macarons, and I hope you are loving making all the Christmas Macarons as much as I am! Have a beautiful day!

5 from 1 vote

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Peppermint Macarons

Perfect Christmas Macarons! Peppermint macarons are the ultimate holiday season cookie!

Course Dessert

Cuisine American, French

Keyword christmas, peppermint

Prep Time 1 hour

Cook Time 40 minutes

Resting time 20 minutes

Total Time 2 hours

Servings 22 macarons

Calories 110 kcal

Author camila

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 a bit of red

Peppermint Buttercream

• 1 1/3  cups  confectioners’ sugar sifted
• 4  tablespoons  unsalted butter softened
• 1  teaspoon  peppermint extract or a bit more, to taste
• 1/2 -1  tablespoon  milk if necessary

Instructions

Macaron Shells

1. Before you start, get all of your ingredients ready. Prepare a large piping bag, fitted with a large round tip. Set aside.
2. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicon mat.
3. 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.
4. Measure out all of your ingredients.
5. Sift powdered sugar and almond flour together. Set aside.
6. 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.
7. Make sure the bottom of the bowl isn’t touching the simmering water.
8. Transfer mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. Pour sifted powdered sugar and almond flour into stiff whites.
12. Start folding gently forming a letter J with a spatula.
13. Add the food coloring at this point, if using. In my case, I added the food coloring later, as explained below.
14. 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, and you might have a couple failed batches before you get this right.
15. 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.
16. There’s another test you can do. I call it the Teaspoon test.
17. Grab a teaspoon of batter and spoon onto the parchment paper or silicon mat. Wait a minute to see how it behaves.
18. 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.
19. Test again.
20. 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.
21. 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.
22. This is the most important part about making macarons in my opinion. 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.

23. Before transferring the batter to a piping bag fitted with a round tip, I put the piping bag in a cup, wrapping the top of the bag around the edges of the cup, in a way that the bag stayed open and the sides wouldn't touch each other. Then grab a small brush and lightly dip in the red food coloring. Brush 4 vertical lines from the bottom of the bag, where the round piping tip is, all the way to the top. Make sure the lines are spaced out evenly, at 12 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 6 o'clock, and 9 o'clock. Then pour the batter in the bag immediately. Don't use too much food coloring or it will add too much moisture to the shells.

24. 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.
25. 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 your macaron shells from cracking.
26. Use a toothpick to pop any air bubbles in the surface of the shells.
27. 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.
28. Pre-heat the oven to 325F.
29. Bake one tray at a time.
30. Bake for 4 minutes, rotate tray.
31. Bake for 4 more minutes. Rotate again.
32. I bake each tray for a total of 18-20 minutes rotating every 4 minutes.
33. 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.
34. Remove from the oven and bake the other tray.
35. Let the macarons cool down before proceeding with the filling.

Peppermint Buttercream

1. Cream butter at medium speed in the bowl of an electric mixer for about 1 minute. With the mixer off, add all of the powdered sugar in.
2. On low speed, mix the sugar and butter together. Once they are incorporated, turn speed to medium and cream for 1-2 minutes until very fluffy.
3. Add peppermint extract.
4. If the buttercream seems dry and stiff, add the milk. Mix for another 30-45 seconds. If the buttercream seems too runny, add more sifted powdered sugar until you obtain a firm, but smooth and creamy consistency.
5. STORAGE: Store the buttercream in the fridge for up to 1 week.

To assemble

1. Place Peppermint Buttercream in a piping bag, and then pipe some buttercream on half of the shells. I also sprinkled some crushed peppermint candies on top of the buttercream before topping with another shell.

Storage

1. These Macarons will freeze well for up to 2 months in an air-tight container, or up to 1 week in the fridge.

Recipe 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.

Storage: This is the Storage Container I use to store my macarons.

Nutrition Facts

Peppermint Macarons

Amount Per Serving (1 macaron)

Calories 110

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.