Salted Caramel Macarons Recipe

from http://youcandoitathome.blogspot.com.au/2011/03/salted-caramel-macarons-me-against.html

makes about 25 3-cm macarons

More details on Basic Mararons using Italian Meringue tecniques can be found here.

You can also see more detailed intructions on making macarons in my Basic Macaron Recipe and I heart Macarons blogs (however, they are recipes using French meringue method). This recipe is using Italian meringue method. The only difference is the cooking sugar syrup part but the rest of the processes are the same.

Macarons shell ingredients
125 g pure icing sugar
125 g almond meal (almond flour or ground almond)
100 g egg whites (separated 24 -48 hours in advance and is at room temperature)
125 g caster sugar (super fine sugar)
30 ml water (2 tablespoons)
7 g coffee extract
A pinch of yellow colouring powder or liquid

Salted caramel ingredients
100 g caster sugar
165 g thickened cream (minimum 35% fat content)
15 g salted butter
70 g soften salted butter

Making macarons shells

Sift almond meal and icing sugar together through fine sieve and set aside.

Divide egg whites into two equal portions (50 g each portion). Pour the first portion of egg white (50 g), coffee extract and colouring powder into the almond meal/icing sugar mixture. Don’t mix or stir them, just leave it as is.

Put the water and caster sugar in a heavy-base saucepan over medium-high heat. When the syrup start to boil. Place the rest of egg white (50 g) into a mixing bowl, using the whip attachment, whip egg white to the soft peak. When the syrup reaches 118°C (on a thermometer), take if off the heat and let it cool down to 115°C.

While the mixer is still running, slowly pour the sugar syrup down the side of the bowl. Be careful not to pour syrup onto the whip as it might spatter.

Continue mixing until the meringue cool down to slightly above body temperature (50°C) or when the side of the mixing bowl is warm to touch. The whipped egg white would be stiff and glossy.

Mix a third of whipped egg white into the almond meal mixture and combine them well. At this step, I work the mixture very vigorously to blend the egg white with almond meal mixture. Fold the rest of whipped egg white into the mixture and mix well, yet gently, until the batter is smooth. The batter will be thick. It resembles a very thick cake batter, or as many web sites describe it as a magma-like consistency (I believe it means the thick batter would flow slowly like a magma).

Put the mixture into a piping bag fitted with 1-cm plain tip (size #11). Pipe the staggering rows of 1-inch rounds onto baking papers or baking sheets. You will need two trays for this recipe.

Let the piped shells stand at room temperature for 30 – 60 minutes to let the crust forms. This depends on the room temperature and humidity. When the piped shells are dry to touch without it sticking to your fingers. They are good to go into the oven.

Preheat the oven to 160°C (fan-force or convection oven, increase the temperature by 20°C if you’re using conventional oven) for at least 15 minutes. Just before baking, turn the temperature down to 150°C and bake the macarons for 15 minutes.

Lift the baking papers/sheets off the baking tray to the cooling rack and let it completely cool down before removing macarons (it is easier to remove cool macarons off the sheet. They are also less likely to stick to the paper).

Sandwich cool macarons shell with chilled salted caramel.

Store macarons in airtight container in the fridge. Macaron will taste better after it is chilled overnight.

Making salted caramel filling

This caramel is done using dry-caramel method where sugar are melted on the medium high heat without any water.

Place cream in a saucepan and bring it to the boil. Put it aside and keep it warm.

Add 30 g of caster sugar to a heavy-based small saucepan over medium-high heat. Let the sugar melt and shake the pan every now and then to help sugar to melt. When the sugar is
melted, put another 35 g of sugar into the pan and let it melt. Repeat with the rest of sugar.



Leave the sugar caramelised until it turns dark amber. Remove the pan from the heat and add 15 g of butter.



Add warm thickened cream to the sugar mixture. Be careful as the mixture might spatter. Quickly shake the pan to help blending cream and caramelized sugar.
Put the saucepan back to medium-heat and let it boil until it reaches 108°C.
Remove from heat and pour the mixture into a bowl. Cover the mixture surface with cling wrap to prevent the skin forming. Set aside to cool down and won't melt butter in the next stage.


Pot of gold. I can just have all of it on its own. Heaven!

When the sugar mixture is cool, beat butter on medium-high speed until it is light and fluffy (approx. 8 – 10 minutes). Mix the sugar mixture into the butter in two batches.

Chill the mixture until ready to use to fill macarons.