Sunflower Macarons

Hello friends, today I will show you how to make these beautiful Sunflower Macarons. These Sunflower Macarons are perfect for Fall season.

I am inspired by @ayseyamanbutikpasta on Instagram and her flower macarons, and she already inspired me to make these Cruella De Vil Macarons, and now the Sunflower Macarons.

Making the sunflowers out of buttercream was a labor of love, not because it’s too complicated, it’s actually easy once you get the hang of it, but it takes a long time, considering I had made two batches of shells, and had around 40 macarons to decorate.

I ended up decorating just about 30 of them, and each macaron takes 8 sunflowers, so you do the math of how many sunflowers I had to pipe lol!

Anyway, it was very therapeutical in a way, and I can’t wait to make more designs like this.

I really recommend that you watch the video to see how to pipe the sunflowers, it’s the best way to learn, even though I try to be descriptive in the instructions below.

The video can be found on YouTube, and also on this page.

The piping tip I used to pipe the petals of the sunflower was the 59 S by Wilton.

It is a petal tip with a curve in the middle, therefore the S in the name. I tried piping with a leaf tip, but I didn’t have a small enough leaf tip to do the job so the sunflowers were coming out pretty big, and they need to be smaller to fit in the macarons.

You should also need some flower nails.

And the parchment squares you’ll see on the video I just cut them by hand from a large piece of parchment sheet.

And for the filling of the Sunflower Macarons I decided to make brownies for the center. Like with my Cruella De Vil Macarons, I like to add a firm center for these types of macarons because it helps to stick the flowers, it offers a solid and stable middle to hold the flowers upright and in place.

Remember to pipe a tall ring of buttercream around the brownie center.

The height of the buttercream ring has to be the same as the diameter of the sunflowers.

I love filling macarons with cake or brownie. I’ve used this brownie recipe to fill my Brownie Macarons, and also Heart Macarons.

And I’ve also used cake to fill my Carrot Cake Macarons and Red Velvet Macarons.

I think in the case of the Sunflower Macarons the brownie is also nice to have in the middle because since the macarons need a thick layer of buttercream frosting, you won’t be eating just pure buttercream, you’ll get some cake in the middle there to break up the excessive amount of frosting you would need if there was no brownie there.

The biggest tip I can give you when making these Sunflower Macarons is to always keep the piped sunflowers in the fridge of freezer specially before placing them on the macarons. They need to be very cold to be able to handle them well. If they are out even for 5 minutes, they will become too soft.

Also note that I am not offering a recipe for the shells below, the recipe for the shells can be found here. I decided to write a post with the basic shell recipe so it shows the steps in a very detailed manner, with lots of tips, photos, and of course a video showing how to make the macaron shells using the Swiss method.

Thank you for reading!

Sunflower Macarons

Camila Hurst

Hello friends, today I will show you how to make these beautiful Sunflower Macarons, they are filled with actual brownies in the center, and decorated with piped buttercream sunflowers.You can check out the basic Swiss Meringue Macaron Recipe to see how to make the macaron batter. This batter was made with the colors egg yellow and gold gel food coloring by americolor.

5 from 2 votes

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Prep Time 2 hours hrs

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Total Time 2 hours hrs 15 minutes mins

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Servings 20 macarons

Calories 150 kcal

Ingredients

  

Macaron Shells

• 1 batch Basic Swiss Meringue Macaron Recipe recipe here (with a few drops of egg yellow and gold food coloring)

Buttercream

• 1 1/2 cup unsalted butter 339 grams
• 4 to 5 cups powdered sugar 500 to 625 grams*
• 2-4 tbsp milk if needed
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Brownies

• 1/4 cup unsalted butter 56 grams
• 1/4 chocolate chips 42.5 grams
• 1/4 cup brown sugar 50 grams
• 3 tbsp granulated sugar 37 grams
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 60 grams
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder 14 grams
• 1/4 tsp salt

Instructions

 

Buttercream

• Beat the butter with an electric mixer at medium high speed until smooth, for a few minutes.
• Add the powdered sugar and vanilla, mix on low to combine, and then raise the speed to medium high and beat for another minute or two.
• Divide the buttercream between two different bowls. You will only need 1/4 of it for the brown buttercream to make the center of the sunflowers, the rest should be kept for the yellow frosting.
• To the brown buttercream, add cocoa powder and brown food coloring to deepen the color. Transfer the buttercream to a piping bag fitted with a small round tip, such as a number 3.
• Now working with the yellow frosting, add yellow food coloring and stir to combine.
• Transfer the frosting to a piping bag fitted with a tip Wilton 59S.
• To pipe the sunflowers, add a bit of buttercream to the flower nail and place a piece of parchment on top.
• Pipe a small mount of brown frosting.
• Then pipe petals all around it with the 59S tip on the horizontal. Start close to the middle of the flower and pull the piping tip outwards as you press the piping bag to release batter.
• As soon as possible place the flowers in the freezer for at least an hour until they solidify.

Brownies

• To make the brownie, add chocolate chips or chopped chocolate to the butter and microwave for 15 to 30 seconds, stirring in between until completely melted.
• Add the granulated and brown sugar to the bowl and whisk to combine.
• Add the egg and whisk.
• Add the vanilla and mix to incorporate.
• Sift into the bowl the flour, cocoa powder and salt.
• Whisk the ingredients to combine.
• Pour the batter on the bottom of a 8×8” pan and bake in the pre-heated 350ºF oven for 10 to 15 minutes or until set.
• Let it cool down before using to fill the macarons.
• Use a small round cutter, or the bottom of a large piping tip to cut circles of brownies.
• Place the brownie in the center of a macaron shell.
• Pipe a tall ring of frosting around the brownies, the frosting’s height should be the same as the diameter of the sunflower.
• Remove a few sunflowers from the freezer and place them around the frosting.
• Then pipe more frosting on top and close with another shell.

Storage

• Store these macarons in the fridge for up to 5 days and in the freezer for a month or so.

Notes

Sunflowers: always keep the sunflowers refrigerated, because otherwise they start to melt and soften up pretty quickly.

For macaron recipe: Basic Swiss Meringue Macaron Recipe

Video: Make sure to watch the video on this page above, or on Youtube, which shows exactly how to make these Sunflower Macarons.

Keyword macarons