These Snickers macarons are delicious! Chocolate macaron shells dipped in chocolate are topped with caramel, and snickers bars. The macarons are filled with salted caramel Buttercream and a special nougat filling, so perfect for the snickers flavor and texture.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword macarons, snickers
Prep Time 2 hourshours
Cook Time 40 minutesminutes
0 minutesminutes
Total Time 2 hourshours40 minutesminutes
Servings 20macarons
Calories 160kcal
Author Camila Hurst
Ingredients
Chocolate Shells
100gramsegg whites
100gramswhite sugar
96gramsalmond flour
75gramspowdered sugar
14gramscocoa powder
Brown food coloring optional to deepen the color
Salted Caramel Sauce
1/2cupsugar100 grams
1/4cupheavy cream60 ml
3tbspunsalted butter42 grams
1/4tspkosher salt
1/4tspvanilla extract
Salted Caramel Buttercream
6tbspunsalted butter room temperature84 grams
1/4cupsalted caramel sauce store bought or homemaderecipe below (60 ml)
1 1/2cupspowdered sugar187.5 grams
1/4tspvanilla
Nougat Filling
2tbspmarshmallow fluff
2tbsppeanut butter
To decorate
113gramschocolatemelted
Snickers bars cut in pieces
3tbspchopped peanuts
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, almond flour, and cocoa powder together. Set aside.
Place a bowl over a pan with barely simmering water to form a double boiler. Add the egg whites and sugar to the bowl 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 medium or medium 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, almond flour, and cocoa powder into the stiff meringue.Start folding gently forming a letter J with a spatula.
Add the food coloring at this point, if using. I added brown.
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.
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 salt at this point.
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.
Add the caramel sauce and beat to combine.
With the mixer off, add 1 1/2 cups of the powdered sugar. Mix on low until incorporated.
Raise the speed to medium and beat for another minute.
If necessary add more sugar, if the mixture is too runny.
Add the vanilla. Place the frosting in a piping bag.
Nougat Filling
In a small bowl mix together the marshmallow fluff and the peanut butter until well incorporated.
To assemble
Melt the chocolate and then dip half of the total number of shells in the melted chocolate.
Place the macarons in the fridge for 5 minutes so the chocolate will set and dry.
Drizzle a bit of leftover caramel sauce on top of the macarons. I like to place the caramel in a piping bag with a small #1 tip, or simply place it in a plastic piping bag and snip the end with scissors.
Top each shell with a little piece of cut up Snickers bars.
Top with the chopped peanuts.
Pipe a ring of Salted Caramel Buttercream on each bottom shell of the macarons.
Then spoon a tiny bit of the Nougat filling in the middle.
Top with the decorated shell.
Let the macarons mature for 24 hours before serving.
Storage
These macarons will keep in the fridge for up to 5 days, or in the freezer for up to 1 month.
Notes
Marshmallow fluff: if you can’t find marshmallow fluff in your area, you can always use homemade marshmallow frosting. My S’mores macarons feature a homemade marshmallow frosting filling, so you can borrow that recipe, though have in mind that it will make way more than what you need.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: I am not using egg white powder in today’s recipe because the climate has been super dry, if I use the egg white powder, my shells will immediately dry up as soon as I pipe them, not even leaving me enough time to pop the air bubbles with a toothpick. If you decide to add egg white powder go for 2 to 3 grams for chocolate shells.Food coloring: Make sure to use gel food coloring, not liquid. For all the colors here I used Americolor. 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.Macaron Tools: Please visit this post to check out all the tools I use to make macarons.