Macaron Recipe without Almond Flour - Sunflower Seed Flour Macarons
This is a macaron recipe without almond flour. You can use sunflower seed flour to make delicious and beautiful macarons! This is the perfect way to make nut free macarons.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword macarons, sunflower seed flour
Prep Time 40 minutesminutes
Cook Time 20 minutesminutes
Total Time 1 hourhour
Servings 40macaron shells
Calories 30kcal
Author Camila Hurst
Ingredients
100gramswhite granulated sugar
4gramsegg white powderoptional
100gramsegg whites
105gramssunflower seed flour
105gramspowdered sugar
Food coloring if desired
Instructions
Prep the ingredients and tools
Before you start, get all of the ingredients ready.
Prepare a large piping pastry bag, fitted with a large round tip, I use a 1/4” diameter tip, or a Wilton 12.
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mat.
Wipe the tools such as bowls, spatulas, and silicone mats with vinegar if desired, this helps getting rid of any grease particles that might be in the tools.
Measure out all of the ingredients.
Sift the powdered sugar and sunflower seed flour together. The sunflower seed might be a bit grainier and harder to sift. It’s best to weigh the sunflower seed after sifting it, and whatever didn’t make through the sifter, you can use for another recipe that doesn’t require the flour to be super fine.
Set it aside.
Start pre-heating the oven. See the baking lesson to figure out the best temperature for you. In the course I was recording at a different location than my house, and the oven was convection, so I was baking the macarons at 275ºF. At home, on a regular electric oven, I bake them at 300 or 305ºF. On my counter top oven I typically bake at 280 to 290ºF.
Making the Swiss Meringue
Place a bowl over a pan with barely simmering water.
Add the sugar and egg white powder to the bowl if using. If you’re not using egg white powder simply skip it, nothing needs to be changed in the recipe.
Whisk the sugar and egg white powder so the egg white powder doesn’t clump up.
Add the egg whites to the bowl and whisk 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 don’t feel any sugar granules, you can remove it from the heat.
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, you are just looking to melt the sugar, no need to bring it to a certain temperature. Transfer the syrup to the bowl of a mixer. Before transferring the syrup, wipe the bottom of the bowl with a towel so the water doesn’t fall into the mixer bowl.
With the whisk attachment, start by whisking the syrup on low (speed 2 of the KitchenAid) for about 30 seconds, then gradually start increasing speed to medium. Whisk on medium (speed 4) for one to two minutes, until the mixture is white and starting to become fluffy. Raise the speed to medium or medium-high (speed 6) and whip for a few minutes until stiff peaks are formed.
It takes me about 13 to 15 minutes to whip the meringue, but you shouldn’t go by time, go by what the meringue is supposed to look like because a lot of things can affect whipping time, such as the quality and freshness of the eggs, the weather, how powerful your mixer is, and more.
Once the meringue gets glossy and you start seeing streaks formed by the whisk, and the meringue raising (balling up) in the center of the whisk, it’s time to start checking.
Whisk until stiff peaks have formed. When you pull the whip up, the peak should be stiff and shooting straight up, measuring about 3 inches, with possibly a slight bend at the top, but not bending to the side.
Also when you swirl the whisk around in the bowl to collect the meringue, you should feel some resistance from the meringue, it shouldn’t feel too easy, but also shouldn’t feel super hard. And when you look on the bottom of the whisk the meringue collected should be forming soft but defined waves.
Macaronage
Pour the sifted powdered sugar and sunflower seed flour into the stiff meringue.
Add the food coloring at this point, if using. If you were using powder food coloring, you could add it during the final or beginning stages of whipping the meringue.
Start folding gently forming a letter J with a spatula.
It will only take a bit of folding until you reach the right consistency for piping.
If you are used to almond flour macarons, note that this will take way less time to macaronage.
The batter won’t be flowing off the spatula effortlessly and on a stream as an almond flour batter would. Instead, it will drip in chunks off the spatula.
Observe how the batter drips off the spatula, and how it quickly incorporates with the batter that’s already in the bowl.
The batter in the bowl will seem very liquidy and runny.
Stop stirring when it gets to that point.
Transfer the batter to the piping bag. I also like to seal the top with a bag tie, so the batter doesn’t dry out and it gives you more control while piping because there’s no risk of the batter escaping through the top of the piping bag.
Place the piping bag directly 90 degrees over the center of each macaron template. Apply gentle pressure and carefully pipe for about 3 to 5 seconds, and then quickly pull the bag up twisting slightly at the top.
Once you’ve piped as many circles as you could, bang the trays against the counter or against the palm of your hand a few times each.
Use a toothpick to pop any air bubbles in the surface of the shells.
Resting or not resting the shells
You can let the shells dry for about 20 to 40 minutes before baking. What I did find is that the batter didn't look too dry, even after letting it sit for nearly one hour, so I just baked it anyway.
To do the no-rest method, you can bake the trays immediately.
Being able to bake macarons without resting will depend on your oven and baking sheets you are using.
The macarons that I baked without resting had considerably smaller feet, but didn't crack.
Baking
Bake one tray at a time.
I bake each tray for about 15 to 20 minutes. If your macarons tend to come out lopsided, rotate the tray after the first 5 minutes baking.
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. Also touch the top of a macaron and it shouldn’t feel soft, if it’s still soft, keep baking.
Remove from the oven and bake the other tray.
Let the macarons cool down before proceeding with the filling.
Storage
Store the unfilled shells in an air tight container in the fridge for up to 5 days, and in the freezer for 1 to 2 months.
Notes
Sunflower Seed Flour: I get mine on Amazon.You can make your sunflower seed flour at home by grinding shelled sunflower seeds into fine meal using a high-quality food processor or blender. Be careful not to turn it into a paste. It's best to process the seeds a few times, sift the mixture, so you can sift out whatever is already fine enough, then return what was left in the sifter to the processor, and continue doing this until it's all finely ground.. You can make your sunflower seed flour at home by grinding shelled sunflower seeds into fine meal using a high-quality food processor or blender. Be careful not to turn it into a paste. It's best to process the seeds a few times, sift the mixture, so you can sift out whatever is already fine enough, then return what was left in the sifter to the processor, and continue doing this until it's all finely ground.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.Egg white powder: Egg white powder is not the same as meringue powder, but some people use meringue powder in the place of egg white powder. Egg white powder is made of only egg whites. They help with getting fuller shells, and specially when adding a lot of food coloring to the batter, because they make the shells dry faster and add a layer of protein to the meringue. I recommend experimenting with it if you can find it. I use 4 grams for each 100 grams of egg whites. You can read more about Egg White Powder here.Food coloring: Make sure to use gel or powder food coloring, not liquid. 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. Read more about food coloring here.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. Read more about oven here.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.Macaron School: Check out Macaron School for many articles such as macaron troubleshooting, the science behind macarons, the tools I use, tips, frequently asked questions, and much more!