Caramel Popcorn Macarons, filled with salted caramel and topped with the best caramel popcorn of your life!
Course Dessert
Cuisine American, French
Keyword caramel, macarons, popcorn
Prep Time 1 hourhour
Cook Time 2 hourshours
Total Time 3 hourshours
Servings 26cookies
Calories 200kcal
Author Camila Hurst
Ingredients
Macaron Shells
100gramswhite granulated sugar
4gramsegg white powderoptional, read notes
100gramsegg whites
105gramsalmond flour
105gramspowdered sugar
Salted Caramel Buttercream
6tbspunsalted butterroom temperature (84 grams)
1/4cupsalted caramel saucestore bought or homemade, recipe below (60 ml)
1 1/2cupspowdered sugar187.5 grams
1/4tspvanilla
Salted Caramel Sauce
1/2cupsugar100 grams
1/4cupheavy cream60 ml
3tbspunsalted butter42 grams
1/4tspkosher salt
1/4tspvanilla extract
Caramel Popcorn
1/4cuppopcorn kernelsI used mushroom popcorns, which have that round cute shape
1 1/2tbspneutral oilvegetable, peanut, grapeseed
1/3cupbutter75 grams
1cuplight brown sugar200 grams
1/2tspkosher salt
3tbspcorn syrup
1/4tspbaking soda
Instructions
Macaron Shells
Before you start, get all of the ingredients ready. Prepare a large piping bag, fitted with a round tip, I used a 1/4" diameter piping tip.
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mat.
Measure out all of the ingredients.
Sift powdered sugar and almond flour together. Set aside.
Whisk the sugar and the egg white powder (if using) in a bowl, and place it over a pan with barely simmering water. Add the egg whites to the sugar and whisk the mixture 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 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 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.
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.
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 circles as you could, bang the trays against the counter a few times each.
Use a toothpick to pop any air bubbles in the surface of the shells.
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 300ºF.
Bake one tray at a time.
Bake for 5 minutes, rotate tray.
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.
Salted Caramel Sauce
Place the sugar in a medium saucepan, over medium heat.
Stir constantly to help the sugar melt evenly.
As soon as the sugar has melted entirely, and the last bit of sugar crystals have dissolved, lower the heat and quickly add the heavy cream. Be careful because it will bubble up.
After a few seconds the bubbles should subside, continue to stir. Add the butter and the salt.
When you see that the butter has almost entirely melted, remove the pan from the heat, continue to stir for a minute or so until you see no more bits of butter.
Pour into a glass jar or bowl. Add the vanilla and stir. Let it cool completely.
If you overcook the caramel sauce at any stage it will become too hard when it cools down, so be mindful of not overcooking the caramel sauce.
Salted Caramel Buttercream
Place the butter in the bowl of a mixer. Whip on medium high until creamy, for about 1 minute.
With the mixer off, add 1 1/2 cups of the powdered sugar. Mix on low until incorporated.
Slowly add the caramel sauce, and start to raise speed to medium high. Cream for 1 minute until fluffy and smooth. Scrape the sides of the bowl. If necessary add more sugar, if the mixture is too runny.
Add the vanilla. Place the frosting in a piping bag.
Caramel Popcorn
Pre-heat the oven to 275F.
You can use microwave popcorn for this, and simply make the sauce and pour over the microwave popcorn already popped, and then bake.
If using popcorn kernels, make sure you have a large pan with a thick bottom, and a lid.
Place the oil in the pan along with 3 corn kernels.
Place it over medium heat. Wait for one corn kernel to pop, and then add the rest of the corn to the pan. Close the lid and let the kernels pop.
Remove from the heat once you don’t hear any more popping.
In a small saucepan add butter, brown sugar, salt, and corn syrup. Whisk over medium heat until it comes to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and let mixture simmer undisturbed for 4 minutes.
Remove from the heat. Add baking soda in, mix until combined. Pour over popcorn. Mix until incorporated.
Pour mixture over a baking sheet lined with a silicon mat, or parchment paper. Bake on pre-heated oven for 60 - 90 minutes, stirring in between, to bake evenly. It will be done once popcorn is golden and caramel looks shiny and crackling.
As soon as you remove the popcorn from the oven, start breaking it up into pieces, so they don’t cool down as a giant block of popcorn.
Store leftovers of the popcorn in an air-tight container at room temperature for 10 days.
To assemble
Pipe the Salted Caramel Buttercream filling in the shells. Top with another shell. I drizzled some caramel and melted chocolate over my macarons in order to stick my caramel popcorns on top. You can also pipe a dollop of filling on top of the macarons to make the popcorns stick on top.
I used about 1 oz of melted chocolate.
Storage
Store in the fridge for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 1-2 months.
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.Egg white powder: Egg White Powder is not the same as meringue 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. I recommend experimenting with it if you can find it. I use 4 grams for each 100 grams of egg whites.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.Caramel: Make sure to not overcook the caramel at any stage, or it will be too hard once it cools down. It will look quite runny when you remove it from the pan, but that's ok, it will thicken as it cools. Also, if you choose to store the caramel in the fridge before using in the recipe, let it come to room temperature or microwave it lightly before using, not to the point where it gets warm, but to help it come to room temperature.Buttercream: If the buttercream is too runny, add more powdered sugar, and if the buttercream is too stiff, add a teaspoon of milk or water to thin it out.Popcorn: Also, you can add 1/4 cup of powdered popcorn to the buttercream. Simply process 1 cup of popcorn in the food processor until finely ground and add to the buttercream. I skipped it here, but I've made it that way before.