Lemon Lavender Vegan Macarons are here to celebrate spring! These vegan macarons are filled with a vegan lavender buttercream, and vegan lemon curd.
Course Dessert
Cuisine French, Gluten-Free, vegan
Keyword macarons, vegan
Prep Time 45 minutesminutes
Cook Time 2 hourshours
Total Time 2 hourshours45 minutesminutes
Servings 30macarons
Calories 90kcal
Ingredients
Vegan Macaron Shells
200 ml aquafaba chickpea water*
133 grams almond flour
133 grams powdered sugar
133 grams white sugar
40 ml water
Yellow food coloringoptional
Vegan Lemon Curd
1/4cuplemon juiceabout 1 1/2 lemons
Zest of the juiced lemonsabout 1 tablespoon
1/3cupgranulated sugar66 grams, 2.34 oz
1 1/2tablespoonscornstarch
2tablespoonscold water
Pinchturmericfor color
1tablespooncoconut buttervegan margarine will also work
Vegan Lavender Buttercream
1/2teaspoonculinary grade dried lavender
2tablespoonscoconut cream
1 1/2cups confectioners’ sugar sifted
4 tablespoons vegan margarine softened
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
Vegan Macaron Shells
Place your aquafaba in a small saucepan. Bring it to a boil over medium heat. Let it reduce and thicken, while stirring from time to time to check the consistency, over medium low heat. You are looking for a gentle simmer.
Once the mixture has reduced til about half, you can remove from the heat.
The aquafaba should have kind of a slimy consistency, such as egg whites.
Set it aside until it cools completely to room temperature.
Measure out 100 ml of the prepared aquafaba. If you have any leftovers, store it in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Sift almond flour and powdered sugar together in a bowl.
Divide the aquafaba in half. Mix 50 ml of the aquafaba with the almonds and powdered sugar. Use a spatula to mix until this becomes a thick paste. Add food coloring at this point, if using any.
Place the other 50 ml of the aquafaba in the bowl of a stand mixer.
Start to mix on low, raising the speed gradually to medium-high.
Whip aquafaba until it reaches stiff peaks. They won’t get as stiff as the peaks in the egg white meringue do. But you will be able to recognize it as a stiff peak, because the whisk will leave streaks in the meringue, and you’ll be able to identify some medium to stiff peaks in your meringue. The mixture will be white and fluffy.
While the meringue whips, you want to move quickly to make the syrup.
Mix water and white sugar in a small saucepan.
Place a thermometer on the side of the pan.If your thermometer doesn’t reach, you might have to hold a thermometer in place while you cook the sugar syrup.
Bring it to a boil over medium heat, until it reaches 245F. Don’t stir the mixture at all. You may rotate the pan if the heat isn’t being evenly distributed. Do it slowly. The problem with doing this is having the risk of forming sugar crystals, from the movement. Which is why it’s recommended you have a clip on thermometer to help you check the temperature of the syrup. If you have to hold the thermometer in place, make sure to move as little as possible, so you don’t form sugar crystals in your syrup. The temperature won’t take too long to get there. Once it reaches 245F remove from the heat.
It’s best if the syrup reaches 245F at the same time as the aquafaba reaches stiff peaks. For that to happen, I always find best to start whisking the aquafaba first, and then quickly starting to make the syrup.
Once the stiff peaks are reaches, and the syrup has cooked til 245F, you may turn the speed in the mixer to medium-low. Start to add the syrup to the aquafaba, with the mixer on. Try not to touch the sides of the pan. Try to pour it directly into the aquafaba.
Raise speed to high once all syrup has been poured.
Whisk on high speed for about 10 minutes.
Once mixture looks glossy, fluffy, and has reached stiff peaks, your meringue is ready to go.
Pour meringue over almond flour paste. Mix with a spatula, doing a J-fold, until incorporated. A J-fold is when you fold coming down through the middle of the bowl, drawing a letter J with your spatula, and just consistenly do that motion, stopping to scrape the spatula every once in a while.
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, and you might have to have a couple failed batches before you get this right.
First, I pick up some batter with my 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.
Then, I grab a teaspoon of batter and spoon onto my parchment paper or silicon mat.
If the batter stays stiff and doesn’t spread out a bit, I start folding a little bit more, about 3 folds.
Test again.
Once the batter spreads out a bit and starts to look glossy on the parchment paper, I transfer my 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.
This is the most important part about making macarons in my opinion.
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 your macaron shells from cracking.
Let your trays sit for a while so the shells will dry out a little bit. This vegan macaron batter takes longer to get dry than my regular French macaron, using the Swiss method. But probably around 30 min-1 hour depending on how humid the day is. You’ll know they’re ready to be baked when you gently touch the surface of a macaron and it seems dry.
Pre-heat the oven to 210F.
Bake one tray at a time.
Bake for 6 minutes, rotate tray.
Bake for 6 more minutes, check if it needs to be rotated again. You will know if it needs to be rotated again depending on how the macarons are baking. Take a look at them, if one side seems taller then the other, maybe you have to rotate the tray again.
Bake for a total of 30 minutes. Really keep an eye out, checking to see if it’s baking evenly. Your oven might be very different than mine.
When baked, the macarons will have a deeper color and formed feet.
Turn the oven off after the 30 minutes, and leave macarons in there for another 20 minutes.
Remove from the oven and bake the other tray.
Let the macarons cool down before proceeding with the filling.
Vegan Lemon Curd
Place lemon juice, lemon zest, and sugar in a small saucepan.
Bring mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly until sugar is melted.
Mix cornstarch and cold water. Set aside for a second.
Once sugar is melted and mixture starts to boil, add cornstarch mixture to the pan.
Bring mixture back to a boil, stirring constantly.
Add a pinch of turmeric to make it a nice deep yellow color.
Cook mixture for one or two minutes over medium-heat, stirring non-stop, until thickened and smooth. For a second, in the beginning, it might seem like the mixture is lumpy, just keep stirring and it will come together.
Remove from the heat. Add coconut butter and stir until coconut butter is melted.
Transfer mixture to a bowl. Let it cool down completely. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.
Vegan Lavender Buttercream
Place lavender and coconut cream in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for a few seconds until the cream heats up. Let lavender and coconut cream infuse for a while until the cream cools down.
Strain cream and discard lavender buds. Let cream cool all the way down before adding it to the recipe.
Sift powdered sugar. Set aside.
Place vegan margarine in a mixer bowl. Cream at medium-high speed for one minute.
With the mixer turned off, add powdered sugar and cream to the bowl.
Mix on low until combined.
Raise speed and cream until fluffy. If buttercream is too runny, consider adding more powdered sugar to it.
Add vanilla. Mix to combine. Place buttercream in a piping bag fitted with a small round tip, or simply cut a small hole at the end of the piping bag.
How to assemble
Pipe a circle of buttercream 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 lemon curd. Don’t overfill it. Place another shell on top.
To decorate, you can drizzle some vegan white chocolate on top and decorate with dried lavender.
Storage
These Blueberry Macarons will be at their best up to 4-7 days in the fridge.
Notes
*Best kind is aquafaba from canned chickpeas, without salt, or low sodium if without salt isn’t available.