These Toffee Macarons have a delicious fudgy filling, covered in chocolate, with toffee bits sprinkled on top. They are gluten-free and delicious!
Course Dessert
Cuisine American, French
Keyword macarons
Prep Time 1 hourhour
Cook Time 40 minutesminutes
Total Time 1 hourhour40 minutesminutes
Servings 26macarons
Calories 110kcal
Author Camila Hurst
Ingredients
Toffee Macarons
100gramsegg whites
100gramsgranulated sugar
105gramsalmond flour
105gramspowdered sugar
Toffee filling
1can condensed milk397 grams, 14 oz
5ozsoft caramel candiesunwrapped (141 grams)
1tbspunsalted butter
Toppings
3ozchocolate chipsor coating chocolate (85 grams)
1/3cuptoffee bits
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 your 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 barely simmering water, whisk the whites and sugar until frothy and 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.
Transfer mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer.
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 the mixture is white and starting to become fluffy. Raise the 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.
Whisk until stiff peaks have formed. When you pull your whip up, the peak should be stiff and shooting straight up, with possibly a slight bend at the top, but not bending 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. Add the food coloring at this point, if using.
How to know when to stop folding the batter: 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 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.
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, the batter is ready.
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.
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.
Transfer the batter to a 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 seconds, and then quickly pull the bag up twisting slightly.
Once you’ve piped as many 1 1/2” 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 the macaron shells from cracking.
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. You’ll know they’re ready when you gently touch the surface of a macaron and it seems dry.
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. I bake each tray for about 15 to 20 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 proceeding with the filling.
Toffee filling
Mix the condensed milk, the caramels, and the butter in a small saucepan.
Bring to a boil, over low-medium heat, stirring non-stop. The whole time you are making this, you must be stirring with a spatula.
Turn heat down to low once it reaches a boil.
You can regulate the heat, turning it up or down, to maintain a light boil as you stir. If the heat is too high, it might burn the filling.
Let mixture get really thick and fudgy, as it cooks for about 10-15 minutes.
You will know it’s ready when you can run your spatula through the middle of the mixture, and not only you can see the bottom of the pan, but the mixture slowly incorporates back together.
Remove to a heat proof bowl. Let it come to room temperature on the counter.
To assemble
Place Toffee Filling in a piping bag.* Pipe over macaron shells. Top with another macaron shell.
Dip each half of macaron in a bowl with melted chocolate.
Top with toffee bits.
Let macarons rest in the fridge overnight to mature.
Serve after sitting in the counter for a few minutes.
Storage
Keep it in the fridge for up to 7 days, well covered.
These Toffee Macarons will freeze well in an air-tight container, for up to 1 month.
Notes
*Try to use a heavy duty piping bag, as this mixture is a little bit thick, and might be hard to pipe. The thickness of the mixture will also depend on how much you’ve cooked it. Which is why you also have to pay attention not to overcook your filling. Once mixture is thick enough that you can see the bottom of the pan and the mixture slowly incorporates back together, you are good to remove it from the heat.*Also, if you place this Toffee filling in the fridge it will be nearly impossible to pipe it. You want to have it at room temperature.Food coloring: Make sure to use gel food coloring. 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.