Strawberry Lemonade Macarons
Hey all! I made delicious Strawberry Lemonade Macarons for a sunny week!
These Strawberry Lemonade Macarons are filled with a strawberry lemonade curd, and strawberry lemonade frosting.
They are so delicious! I wanted to eat the strawberry lemonade curd with a spoon. It was so good!
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The Strawberry Lemonade frosting wasn’t too shabby either.
I used strawberry powder with cream cheese, butter, and confectioner’s sugar. Oh, and lemon zest, of course!
Strawberry Freeze Dried Powder
is so much better to make frosting than actual strawberry jam. The jam, or coulis will often make the frosting watery, or make it separate. The freeze dried strawberry powder works like a charm, and you don’t need a whole lot of it. The taste is delicious too!
You can buy strawberry powder on Amazon, already in powder form, or you can buy freeze dried strawberries and process them in a blender cup to form the powder.
Check out how creamy and delicious this strawberry lemonade frosting is.
We start with our regular Macaron shells, my standard recipe uses the Swiss Method. I have tones of resources for you to learn how to make macarons. Check out my other macaron recipes and tutorials here. You can also find some videos on my Youtube channel.
The video you see on this page was actually made with this batter, and it explains in more detail how to nail the meringue stage. There’s also a blog post about it How to Make Macarons: the Perfect Meringue.
I try to be pretty detailed in my recipe, but it always helps to research and read a lot about macarons when trying to perfect them.
Once we have our shells cooled down, the frosting ready, and the curd chilled, we can start assembling our Strawberry Lemonade Macarons.
Pipe a ring of the Strawberry Lemonade frosting around the edges of the macarons.
I used a large tip when piping the frosting around the edges of the macaron, because I wanted a tall barrier to keep the curd in the macaron, and enough room to put a lot of curd in the center.
Spoon some of that delicious strawberry lemonade curd in the middle. Resist the temptation to lick the spoon. You can use a piping bag also, like I did here.
Once your macarons are assembled, you should leave them in the fridge overnight, this will help the macarons mature, develop flavor and optimal texture.
If you want to see more options of macaron flavors and ideas, check out my Macaron section.
Here are some popular macaron flavors you might like:
- Cherry Macarons
- Kiwi Macarons
- Strawberry Macarons
- Blueberry Macarons
- Cookie Dough Macarons
- Lemon Macarons
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Thanks for reading my blog. Have a fantastic day!
Strawberry Lemonade Macarons
Ingredients
Macaron Shells
- 100 grams egg whites
- 100 grams white granulated sugar
- 105 grams almond flour
- 105 grams powdered sugar
- Yellow food coloring optional
Strawberry Lemonade Curd
- 1 1/2 tbsp lemon zest
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 1/2 tbsp granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter room temperature
- 2 large eggs
- 1/4 cup freeze dried strawberry powder (about 1 cup of freeze dried strawberries processed until a fine powder)
- 1/8 tsp salt
Strawberry Lemonade Buttercream
- 4 tbsp cream cheese room temperature (2 oz, 56 grams)
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter room temperature (1 oz, 28 grams)
- 1-1 1/2 cups powdered sugar (4.5 oz-6.75 oz, 127 grams-191 grams)
- 1 cup freeze dried strawberries (0.85 oz, 24 grams)*
- Zest of one lemon
- 1 tsp milk
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
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 simmering water, whisk the whites and sugar until frothy and sugar completely melted. It will take a couple minutes.
- 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, whisk the mixture on low, and gradually increase the speed over the next 2 minutes, until you achieve high speed. Then continue to whip 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 peaks should be shooting straight up. The peak should be stiff, forming a slightly curved shape at the top, but not bending down 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, 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, pick up some batter with the spatula and try to form a figure 8 a few times. If you can draw a figure 8 with the batter falling off the spatula a few times, without the batter breaking up, that’s one indication that it might be ready.
- Then, you can perform what I call the Teaspoon Test. Grab a teaspoon of batter and spoon onto the parchment paper or silicon mat, then tap the tray gently against the counter and wait one minute.
- If the batter stays stiff and doesn’t spread out a bit, fold the batter a bit more, then test again.
- Once the teaspoonful of batter smooths out on top and starts to look glossy on the parchment paper/silicone, without forming a peak at the top, transfer the 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.
- Once you’ve piped as many 1 1/2” circles as you could, bang the trays against the counter a few times each.
- Use a toothpick to poke any air bubbles on the surface of the macarons.
- 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 and doesn't stick to your finger.
- Pre-heat the oven to 300°F.
- Bake one tray at a time.
- Bake for 5 minutes, rotate tray.
- I bake for a total of 15 to 20 minutes. Until you try to move a macaron and it doesn't feel jiggly.
- When baked, the macarons will have a deeper color and formed feet. And they will peel off the tray easily.
- Remove from the oven and bake the other tray.
- Let the macarons cool down before proceeding with the filling.
Strawberry Lemonade Curd
- Cream the butter at medium speed in the bowl of an electric mixer. Slowly add sugar and lemon zest to butter and keep creaming at medium speed for a few minutes, until mixture is light in color and fluffy.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, waiting until egg has been completely incorporated before adding the next one.
- Add the salt and freeze dried strawberry powder. And finally, add lemon juice, and stir on low speed.
- Pour mixture in a small sauce pan and bring it to a boil over medium heat, while stirring nonstop.
- You are looking for a very thick and creamy curd. Don’t stop stirring, don’t look away.
- The temperature of the curd should be reaching 170F.
- When that happens, remove from heat and pour into a heat proof bowl.
- Let it cool in the fridge.
- STORAGE: The shelf life of lemon curd will be up to 1 week in the fridge, and up to 3 months in the freezer, if well protected.
Strawberry Lemonade Buttercream
- Place strawberries in a blender cup, process until they become powder. Or simply use powdered freeze dried strawberries instead.
- Sift powdered sugar and strawberry powder together. Set aside
- Cream butter and cream cheese at medium speed in the bowl of an electric mixer for about 1 minute. With the mixer off, add all of the powdered sugar, and powdered strawberry in.
- Mix on low speed until sugar is incorporated. Once they are incorporated, turn speed to medium and cream for 1-2 minutes until very fluffy. Add vanilla and milk in, beat for another 30-45 seconds.
- If the consistency of the frosting seems a bit runny, add more powdered sugar in it to make it thicker. If the consistency of the frosting seems too stiff, add more milk, only 1 teaspoon at a time, as necessary.
- STORAGE: Store buttercream in the fridge for up to 1 week.
How to assemble
- Pipe a circle of frosting around the edges of the macaron, in a way that you have a little hole in the middle. Fill the little hole with a bit of strawberry lemonade curd. Don’t overfill it. Place another shell on top.
- STORAGE: This Strawberry Lemonade Macaron's shelf life is 4 to 5 days in the fridge. I don't recommend freezing macarons with curd or jam fillings.
Admiro muito o grau de detalhes dos seus doces, são verdadeiras obras-primas!!!!!!!!!
Obrigada paizao!
Oh my goodness Cam!! Your macarons are simply amazing. I think strawberry lemonade is pretty much the best flavor combo for spring!!
I love your recipes! For the strawberry curd, the recipe card looks like it’s just a lemon curd. Where do you add the strawberries and how much? Thank you!!
Hey Sara, thank you so much for pointing this out to me. It completely slipped!! So I went ahead and fixed the recipe!! It’s 1/4 cup of freeze dried strawberry powder.
Thank you again!! Have a great day!!
❤️❤️can’t wait to try this! Thank you!
Tastes very good. My family loved it. Will definitely make it again.
Ohhh I am so happy to hear that!!! Thank you so much!!!! Strawberry lemonade is one of my favorite combos!!! 🙂 have a nice day!
Beautiful macarons – great flavors. Can I ask what kind of oven you have? Do you use convection?
I don’t use convection, I just use a regular electric oven 🙂
Thank you!
Can you use fresh strawberries?
I havent made this with fresh strawberries so I don’t know what the measurements would have to be, but I am sure that with some measurement adjusting you could do this with fresh strawberries
I’ve never heard of cream cheese in butter cream. I was wondering if you could do the butter cream without the cream cheese.
Of course
This recipe looks great! Do you think that you could substitute freeze dried raspberry (powder) instead of freeze dried strawberry (powder) at a 1:1 ratio to make Raspberry Lemonade Macarons? By the way, I love your blog so much! (Especially the macaron recipes!!)
For sure!! it will work great!!!
Oh my goodness! I did it with Raspberry ingredients instead or strawberry, but I would be willing to say that these are the best macarons I have ever made or tasted! They were amazing! I love your blog and your recipes so much! 🙂
Absolutely loved this recipe! I use French method but followed your recipe for the filling and curd. Delicious! I changed a few things (like no lemon zest in buttercream etc) but everything came out so yummy!!! The cream cheese is a great addition so that the buttercream is not too sweet with the confectioners sugar. Thank you 😊
Ohhh very nice!! Thank you so much 🙂
Hi! I have another question, how long would you keep your leftover curd? I usually have left over curd when I make small batches 😬😊
you can keep it in the fridge for a few days (I dont keep longer than 4-5)
and you can freeze it for up to a month or two.
I’ve made this recipe a few times & swapped in raspberry powder. This recipe is very flavorful. My favorite macaron so far! I constantly recommend this recipe to others.
That’s awesome Marisa! thank you!!
The directions are thorough and easy to follow. I made these without the curd (due to time constraints) as my first attempt at making macarons. They were delicious. I got rave reviews from everyone who tried them at our Easter dinner.
awesome to hear! Thank you Michelle!!!
I don’t see where the zest of 1 lemon in the buttercream ingredients is incorporated into the icing?
you can add it with the freeze dried powder and powdered sugar
Can you please tell me what food coloring you used to get that great color for the shells and how many drops?
Thanks!
I dont know how many drops, I never count them, I just add it until I am satisfied with the color. I used yellow from americolor.
Always have in mind that once you bake the macarons will fade a bit so the color has to be a bit more vibrant than what you want the final result to be.
Thank you for the delicious recipes. For the buttercream when do you add the lemon zest? I didn’t see it mentioned in the instructions.
add it along with the powdered sugar! sorry about the missing instruction!