Vegan Raspberry Macarons made using the French Method, filled with vegan raspberry buttercream and raspberry jam.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American, vegan
Keyword macarons, raspberries, vegan macarons
Prep Time 2 hourshours
Cook Time 40 minutesminutes
Total Time 2 hourshours40 minutesminutes
Servings 30macarons
Calories 145kcal
Author Camila Hurst
Ingredients
Vegan Macaron Shells
110gramsalmond flour
110grams powdered sugar
75gramsaquafaba
1/4tsp cream of tartar
66gramsgranulated sugar
Vegan Raspberry Buttercream
4tbspvegan butter56 grams
1cuppowdered sugar sifted125 grams
3tbsppowdered freeze dried raspberry19 grams
To assemble
1/4cupraspberry jam
1droppink food coloring
1/4 -1/2tspclear liquorI used rum
Instructions
Vegan Macaron Shells
Gather all of the ingredients before starting to make the macarons. Measure out the almond flour, powdered sugar, aquafaba, cream of tartar, and granulated sugar.
Line two baking sheets with silicone mats or parchment paper.
And fit a large piping bag with a round tip.
Sift the almond flour and the powdered sugar together. Set aside.
Place the aquafaba in the bowl of a mixer.
Start whipping on low speed and add the cream of tartar.
Whip for about 30 seconds, until the aquafaba starts getting white and thick.
Raise the speed to medium and continue to whip for another minute or so, until you are able to see streaks left by the whisk on the aquafaba.
At this point, raise the speed to high, and start to add the granulated sugar, slowly, a bit at a time.
Continue to whip until the aquafaba achieves stiff peaks.
The whole whipping, from beginning to end, should last about 10 minutes. It might take more or less time depending on your mixer, and on the aquafaba. If I am using my hand mixer, the whipping time can even take about 20 minutes.
Stop whipping when the peaks are shooting straight up.
Add the sifted dry ingredients to the whipped aquafaba. Start folding with a spatula slowly.
Add food coloring at this point, if using any. For these macarons, I didn’t add any food coloring.
Fold the batter forming a letter J with the spatula.
Fold until the batter is flowing slightly. You don’t want the batter to be flowing continuously off the spatula. When it comes to vegan macarons, the folding time is very very brief. You are basically just looking to incorporate the dry ingredients with the meringue. Please watch the video to see what the consistency should look like. If you grab a spatula full of batter and hold it over the bowl, it should still be separating in chunks, and not flowing continuously on a ribbon. Do not get to the ribbons stage! If you get to the ribbon stage, the macaron feet will spread out in the oven.
Transfer the batter to the piping bag.
Pipe 1 1/2” circles on a baking sheet lined with silicon mat. I usually use 2 sheets. This will depend on how big you pipe your macarons.
Slam the trays against the counter to release air bubbles.
Use a toothpick to pop any remaining bubbles.
Let the trays rest for 30-45 minutes until the shells are dry. Test this by touching a macaron gently with your finger. Depending on humidity levels and weather, it might take longer or less time for your macarons to dry.
Pre-heat the oven to 285ºF.
Bake each tray separately, one tray at a time.
Bake for a total of 20 minutes, or until the macarons are easily coming off the silicon mat.
After 5 minutes baking, I rotate the tray to ensure even baking on all sides. Not all bakers have to do this, if your oven has an even heat distribution you may not have to rotate the trays, but if your macarons are coming out lopsided, or if only a few in the tray are cracking, then it’s worth to experiment with rotating the trays during baking.
After about 8 minutes baking, I also place a piece of foil or parchment paper on top of the macarons, so that they won’t brown as they bake.
Baking time might vary depending on your oven, consistency of the batter, oven temperature.
Try to wiggle a macaron, and if it doesn’t feel jiggly, you can remove them from the oven.
Let the macarons cool down before filling.
Vegan Raspberry Buttercream
Cream the butter at a medium speed with an electric mixer for 45 seconds, until creamy.
With the mixer off, add powdered sugar and freeze dried raspberry powder to the bowl. Mix on low until combined.
Raise speed to medium high and cream for 30 seconds until creamy.
If you notice the buttercream is too stiff or dry, add a bit of non-dairy milk, or water, 1 teaspoon at a time.
If the buttercream is too runny, maybe the butter is too hot, in that case, cover the bowl and insert it in the fridge for 5 minutes. If the butter is room temperature, then maybe you need to add more powdered sugar to the buttercream.
To assemble
Pipe a ring of buttercream around the edges of each bottom shell. Fill the middle with a little bit of jam. Top with another shell.
For the decoration
Place a drop of pink food coloring in a small bowl, add about 1/4 tsp of clear liquor such as vodka or rum, don’t worry, it will evaporate and you won’t be able to taste it.
Mix the food coloring until it dissolves. Grab a brush and dab it in the dissolved food coloring. Then, making quick motions, stroke the brush against the teeth of the fork, to create speckles on the shells of the macarons.
Storage
Make sure to let macarons mature in the fridge for 24-48 hours before serving. They will have a much better consistency and flavor. Let the macarons sit at room temperature for 10 minutes before enjoying.
These will keep for quite a while. You can keep them in the refrigerator for 1 week, or in the freezer for up to a month.
Notes
Aquafaba is the water you obtain from cooking chickpeas (or other legumes). The aquafaba I use is water drained from a chickpea can. I prefer low or no sodium chickpea water, mainly because of the taste, I feel like the salted chickpea water adds a weird taste to meringues and such. Some people like to boil their own chickpeas to obtain the aquafaba, and you can do that, but make sure to study what are the best ratios water:chickpeas so your aquafaba is concentrated enoughAquafaba: I used to reduce the aquafaba before. But lately, I haven’t been reducing it anymore, and it works just fine. If you do want to reduce the aquafaba, place 150 grams of aquafaba in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, simmer until it reduces to about half. I recommend using the aquafaba straight from the chickpea can.Macaronage: Do not let the batter reach ribbon stage. If it reaches ribbon stage it will be over mixed, the batter is supposed to be thick. Watch my videos on YouTube to see what it should look like.Thick batter: If the batter is too thick while mixing, add a teaspoon of aquafaba as you mix, until you obtain the perfect consistency.Oven thermometer: Please make sure to have an oven thermometer! I receive a lot of troubleshooting questions and the great majority are issues caused due to not having an oven thermometer.Oven temperature: Please experiment with your own oven temperature. Temperatures will vary depending on your oven and technique. It’s important to experiment and see what works best for your own oven. In my old oven I used to bake this same recipe at 310ºF. However, with my new oven, I bake it at 285ºF. This comes to show that the temperature will vary greatly depending on your own oven. Please experiment and find out what works best for you.Troubleshooting: if your macarons are exploding, flattening out, with the feet spreading to the sides, that can mean a few things:1- hot oven (make sure to have oven thermometer and experiment with the optimal oven temperature for your oven).2- over mixed batter. It's really easy to over mix vegan macaron batter. Mix it just until it starts to flow. Watch the videos on my youtube channel for reference.3- under whipped meringue: make sure the meringue has really stiff peaks. It can take some time. Just be patient.