In our humble opinion, the filling of these is so divine it should be worshipped… But when you’re working with the flavour combination of pistachio and salted caramel it’s obviously going to taste delicious. These are probably our all time favourite macarons (not that we like to play favourites…)
You literally can’t go wrong with a pistachio and salted caramel flavour combination, it’s a sure fire winner! In fact, salted caramel alone makes everything at least 50% better (we certainly think so anyway!!). So we had high hopes for these salted caramel and pistachio macarons, and they did not disappoint! The filling we used is a pistachio and salted caramel buttercream. We also replaced some of the almonds in the macaron batter with pistachios to really bring through the flavour.
Macarons are always deemed to be such a tricky bake, but we really feel that anyone could achieve great results if you approach the recipe with a bit of confidence and the right equipment (an extra pair of hands always helps too!!). We use the italian meringue method of making macarons which we feel is a little easier to work with as the meringue is more stable, we’ve talked about this before in our other macaron posts. It does mean you need a thermometer which some amateur bakers may not have, but you can pick them up for about a fiver so if you’re serious about becoming an accomplished macaron maker, it’s a good investment!!
We can’t stress this enough, but one the 2 key parts of making macarons are the mixing and the drying time. You can read a million and 1 posts about reasons why this happened or why this didn’t happen, but if you nail your mixing and dry them out properly then you should end up with the perfect macaron!! It’s easy to under mix or over mix your batter, but essentially you want it to be an even colour with no patches of white meringue still visible and runny enough to fall off your spoon back into the bowl in ribbons, where it should take 10-20 seconds to disappear back into the mixture.
Once we filled our macarons we rolled the exposed edges of buttercream in crushed pistachios which is a simple but pretty way to add a bit of decoration if you want to! You could also sprinkle some crushed pistachios onto the top of macarons after they’ve dried but before you bake them.
If you want to check out any of our other macaron recipes, then click here!
- 2 x 40g egg whites
- 70g ground almonds
- 30g crushed pistachios
- 100g icing sugar
- 100g caster sugar
- 35ml water
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- a few drops green food colouring
- 35g pistachios, shelled
- 1 tsp sugar syrup
- 125g butter, softened
- 300g icing sugar
- 140g caramel
- 2 tsp salt
- Process the almonds, pistachios and icing sugar together in a food processor for about 30 secs.
- In a bowl of a stand mixer or in a bowl with an electric whisk start beating the first 40g of egg whites.
- While doing this place a pan on the hob with the water and sugar and bring to the boil, monitoring the temperature as you do so. Once it passes 105 degrees celsius, increase the speed of the whisk (the egg whites should form stiff peaks at this point).
- When the sugar syrup reaches 115 degrees take it off the hob and pour into the egg whites in a thin stream, whilst still whisking on a high speed (it’s definitely useful to have either a stand mixer or 2 pairs of hands at this point!). The egg whites should become glossy meringue, continue mixing for about 5 mins so that the mixture cools down.
- In another bowl, mix together the icing sugar and almonds, remaining egg whites, vanilla and coffee or food colouring to form a paste.
- Using a rubber spatula, spoon about a third of the meringue into the bowl with the paste and mix well, this loosens the mixture. Then add the remaining meringue and fold in until fully incorporate, your mixture should be runny enough to slowly fall off the spatula but not so runny that it falls straight off!
- Place the mixture into a piping bag and pipe 3-4 cm circles about 2 cm apart, onto 2 baking trays lined with greaseproof paper. Once the whole tray has been piped, bang the bottom onto the work surface 2 or 3 times to get out air bubbles, then set aside for 30mins to an hour so that the macarons form a skin, this is what helps them bake properly and get feet!
- Once your macarons have a skin (nothing should come off on your hand if you lightly touch them with your finger) bake at 150 degrees for 14 mins.
- Allow to cool completely whilst still on the greaseproof paper, then set aside to be assembled once you’ve made the filling!
- Blend together the pistachios and sugar syrup, we did this is a small food processor, until yu have a paste.
- In a medium bowl, cream the butter and add in about a third of the icing sugar, whisk until incorporated.
- Add in the pistachio paste, caramel, salt and another third of the icing sugar, and mix again. Then add the remaining third and whisk for about 2 mins until nice and fluffy.
- Place the mixture in a piping bag and pipe the filling onto a macaron shell and sandwich together with another shell.
We pipe out our macarons fairly small as we like them to be just a couple bites but you can make them smaller or bigger if you like, just take off a minute or 2 baking time for smaller or add on a minute or 2 for bigger ones!
