These Minecraft Macarons are square shaped macarons decorated with the Minecraft theme, we have the pig, the TNT and the creeper! I made these for my son’s birthday because he loves minecraft!
I have the templates available on the blog so you can download them, print them and place under your mats to pipe your own Minecraft square macarons.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword macarons, minecraft
Prep Time 3 hourshours
Cook Time 40 minutesminutes
0 minutesminutes
Total Time 3 hourshours40 minutesminutes
Servings 20macarons
Calories 80kcal
Author Camila Hurst
Ingredients
Macaron shells
100gramsegg whites
100gramsgranulated sugar
105gramsalmond flour
105gramspowdered sugar
Red, Leaf Green, Peach food coloring
Instructions
Macaron shells
Before you start, get all of the ingredients ready. Prepare 4 piping bags fitted with round tips. Look for smaller tips, sizes 5 to 8 at the most, to help pipe the edges of the square.
I recommend making two different batches of macarons, one can be dedicated to making the TNT macarons, so it would be split into a white batter and a red batter.
The other batch could be dedicated to making the pig and the creeper macarons. So this way you will have enough batter.
Line a few baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mat, place the printable template under the mat.
Measure out all of the ingredients. Sift the powdered sugar and almond flour. Set it aside.
Place a bowl over a pan with barely simmering water. Add the sugar and egg whites to the bowl and whisk the mixture until 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 because you don’t want the whites to cook.
Also, don’t overheat the sugar syrup, this may cause issues down the line, such as wrinkly macarons.
Transfer the syrup to the bowl of a stand mixer.
With the whisk attachment, start whisking the syrup on low for about 30 seconds, then gradually start increasing speed to medium or to medium-high and whisk 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.
Whip until stiff peaks have formed. When you pull your whisk up, the peak should be stiff and shooting straight up, with possibly a slight bend at the top, but not bending down to the side.
Pour the sifted powdered sugar and almond flour into the stiff meringue.
Start folding gently forming a letter J with a spatula.
As soon as you see no more dry ingredients in the meringue, stop stirring. Divide the batter between 2 different bowls.
Work with one bowl at a time, leaving the other ones covered meanwhile.
To the first batter I didn’t add any food coloring, as this would be the batter dedicated to piping the white part of the TNT. Fold the batter until the perfect consistency is achieved. The batter should be flowing slowly and effortlessly off the spatula, you should be able to pick up some batter with the spatula and draw several figure 8s with the batter that’s flowing, without having the batter break up. And even after the batter breaks up, it should still continue to flow off the spatula slowly.
It might be a bit difficult to make the figure 8 with just a little bit of batter, so just make sure the batter is running off the spatula. Watch the video on this page or on Youtube, which will show you better what the consistency is supposed to be like. 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, it’s ready.
You don’t want your batter to be too runny either. So be careful not to over-mix. It’s always best to under-mix 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.
Once the first batter (white) achieves the perfect consistency, transfer it to one of the prepared piping bags fitted with a small round tip. Secure the top with a tie, so the batter doesn’t scape while piping, and to keep the batter from drying out while you work with the remaining batter. Set the piping bag aside.
Now, it’s time to work with the second batter. To this batter I added red food coloring, then fold until the perfect consistency is achieved, like I’ve explained above.
Transfer the batter to another piping bag fitted with a small round tip. And secure the top with a tie.
When making the other batch for the pig and the creeper, color one batch with leaf green, and the other with peach food coloring for the pig.
Piping the TNT
First I’ll explain how to pipe the TNT
Pipe the first square on the top, then the one on the bottom. Immediately after piping use a toothpick to help spread out the batter to the outlines and to form the pointy corners of the square. Then skip the very next square and pipe batter on the third square, top and bottom. Use a toothpick to do the same as before. Continue to pipe the other macarons, this way the batter will have a chance to dry before you pipe the other adjacent squares.
After piping the adjacent squares use a toothpick to spread them out and to form the pointy corners.
Always in the process remember to tap the trays against the counter or against the palm of your hands to release air bubbles and to help the batter smooth out.
Lastly, pipe the white rectangle in the center of the macaron.
I piped the other half of the baking tray of just red macaron squares, so they could be the bottom of the TNT macaron sandwich, it's easier to pipe one whole square than piping the intricate details of the TNT, and that side was going to be facing down in the back anyway, so I figured it would be better like that.
Let the macarons dry before baking.
Remove the template from underneath the mat right after piping, this way the shells won't be dry enough that they will crack when you lift the mat up.
To pipe the plain squares
To pipe the pain squares simply go around the edges of the square and the middle applying pressure on the piping bag to release batter.
Immediately after piping use a toothpick to pop any air bubbles from the surface of the macarons and also to help spread the batter to the outlines and to form the pointy corners of the square as best as you can.
Once you pipe all the pigs, and after the batter has dried a bit, you can pipe the pig’s nose. Switch the tip of the piping bag to a very small tip such as a 3. Then pipe a small rectangle on the center of the shell.
Drying and baking
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. Drying time will also depend on the consistency of the meringue, on how much you’ve folded the batter, and on how much food coloring you’ve added.
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.
Bake for 5 more minutes. Rotate again.
In the last 5 minutes of baking, place a piece of foil over the macarons, to make sure they don’t brown too much.
I bake each tray for about 15 minutes.
When baked, the macarons will have a deeper color and formed feet. If you try to move a macaron, it shouldn’t feel jiggly. If the macaron is still jiggly, keep baking.
Remove from the oven and bake the other tray.
Let the macarons cool down before drawing on them and proceeding with the filling.
To decorate the shells
Use a black edible marker to draw the eyes of the pig. Then use a brown marker to draw the nose.
For the filling
For the filling I used my Oreo Ganache that I also used on my Oreo Macarons. You can find the recipe here.
Dip a small brush in white gel food coloring and paint the white part of the eyes.
Use the black edible marker to draw the Creeper's face, and also to write TNT on the white stripe of the TNT macarons.
To assemble
Pipe some ganache on each bottom shell, then top with another shell.
Storage
The macarons will store nicely for up to 5 days in the fridge and in the freezer for up to 1 month.
Notes
Vinegar: Before starting make sure to wipe down the bowls, whisks, silicone mats and everything you are going to use with vinegar, to avoid any grease particles of coming into contact with the meringue and batter.Food coloring: Make sure to use gel food coloring, not liquid. For all the colors here I used Americolor. 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. Here is my guide to how to obtain vibrant colors, including the brands of food coloring I prefer.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.Macaron Tools: Please visit this post to check out all the tools I use to make macarons.Troubleshooting: Visit this post to see the Troubleshooting Guide.