Minion Macaron with Mango cream

  French Macaron is any Baker's desire.  They are one such bakes, which needs highest precision.  You need to tame these each and every step, yes almost like handling your toddlers :D  For those, who are new to this term, French Macaron is an meringue-based confection which has an usual filling of ganache, buttercream or any fruit jam.  They differ from Macaroons, since they include almond flour and icing sugar for their crispy shell with an feet.

With Mango season around, I made Mango buttercream as an filling, and played around gel colours and edible marker pens with Macarons to get this Minion theme done.  The base recipe is from Pooja Dhingra's The Big Book of Treats.  Please make sure that you age egg whites for 4-5 days for this recipe.  And yes, all ingredients should be brought to room temperature before use.  

Wow, look at these Minion cuties - if you have any Minion fans back at home, you should definitely give this an try.  And yes, considering complexity of this recipe, make sure you follow each and every step.  

The following recipe yields 18 pairs of Macaron.

Ingredients required:

For Macaron shells

• 80 grams of egg whites, aged 4 to 5 days
• 75 grams of castor sugar
• 1 tbspn vanilla extract
• 100 grams of icing sugar
• 100 grams of almond powder
• Gel colours, yellow and blue

For Mango Buttercream

• 50 grams Unsalted butter
• 2 tbspn mango puree
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 100 grams icing sugar

Method:  

Pour your aged egg white in an clean dry bowl.  Start beating them till they get foamy and reach soft peak.  

An soft peak is an stage where peaks formed fall off the beater, please look at the pic below.  The peaks are soft enough to break once beaters are removed from bowl.  

Start adding castor sugar, little by little and beat the egg whites simultaneously.  After few minutes, you will end up with stiff peaks.  

An stiff peak is an situation , where peaks are very stiff that they retain the shape in the beater blades, as given in below pic.

I divided these into two batches.  Also divided almond powder and icing sugar into two batches.  For the first batch, I added yellow gel colour, and remaining batch I dyed them blue.  

I slowly, whisked them to incorporate colour, and added 50 grams of almond powder and 50 grams of icing sugar as three additons batchwise.  Slowly, I folded  these to give gentle strokes.  Mixing is done till the batter flows freely, I would advice you to watch couple youtube videos showing the same.  

After the mixing, I transferred them to piping bag and piped into parchment paper.  Then they are left to dry at room temperature.  They are dried till they develop skin around the surface, just like milk forms when they are hot.  

Similarly repeat the step with yellow dyed macaron batter and pre-heat the oven to 150 degree celsius.  

After shells got dried up and formed an skin around (this would depend upon your room temperature, for me it took around 25 minutes) bake them for 15 minutes.  Cool them completely over wire rack.  

For Mango cream, beat butter till they are light and flufffy.  

Now add in mango puree , essence and beat again.

Slowly incorporate icing sugar in around three batches.  Continue beating till they are glossy and light.

For Assembly, Peel the cooled Macarons away from Parchment sheet, you can observe the feet below.  This feet is an characteristic feature of Macarons.  

Turn the Macarons upside down and pipe an small dollop of cream.  Sandwich this with another Macarons.  

Press the surface of both macarons, now they are done.  Store them in airtight container.  

They are best had after an days of refrigeration.

I played around with Wiltons edible marker, you could also pipe dark compound if you wish.

Enjoy!  Happy Baking !